Dissimilarity-driven behavior and cooperation in the spatial public goods game

In this paper, we explore the impact of four different types of dissimilarity-driven behavior on the evolution of cooperation in the spatial public goods game. While it is commonly assumed that individuals adapt their strategy by imitating one of their more successful neighbors, in reality only very few will be awarded the highest payoffs. Many have equity or equality preferences, and they have to make do with an average or even with a low payoff. To account for this, we divide the population into two categories. One consists of payoff-driven players, while the other consists of dissimilarity-driven players. The later imitate the minority strategy in their group based on four different dissimilarity-driven behaviors. The rule that most effectively promotes cooperation, and this regardless of the multiplication factor of the public goods game, is when individuals adopt the minority strategy only when their payoff is better than that of their neighbors. If the dissimilarity-driven players adopt the minority strategy regardless of the payoffs of others, or if their payoff is the same, the population typically evolves towards a neutral state where cooperators and defectors are equally common. This may be beneficial when the multiplication factor is low, when defectors would otherwise dominate. However, if the dissimilarity-driven players adopt the minority strategy only when their payoff is worse than that of their neighbors, then cooperation is not promoted at all in comparison to the baseline case in the absence of dissimilarity-driven behavior. We explore the pattern formation behind these results, and we discuss their wider implications for the better understanding of cooperative behavior in social groups.