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Reputation Effects in Public and Private Interactions

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  • Hisashi Ohtsuki
  • Yoh Iwasa
  • Martin A Nowak

Abstract

We study the evolution of cooperation in a model of indirect reciprocity where people interact in public and private situations. Public interactions have a high chance to be observed by others and always affect reputation. Private interactions have a lower chance to be observed and only occasionally affect reputation. We explore all second order social norms and study conditions for evolutionary stability of action rules. We observe the competition between “honest” and “hypocritical” strategies. The former cooperate both in public and in private. The later cooperate in public, where many others are watching, but try to get away with defection in private situations. The hypocritical idea is that in private situations it does not pay-off to cooperate, because there is a good chance that nobody will notice it. We find simple and intuitive conditions for the evolution of honest strategies.Author Summary: We study the evolution of cooperation based on reputation. This mechanism is called indirect reciprocity. In a world of binary reputations, people help a good individual but do not help a bad one. They also monitor their own reputation to receive reciprocation from others. We propose a novel model of indirect reciprocity where two types of interactions exist. In a public interaction your behavior is always observed by others. In a private interaction, your behavior is less likely to be observed. We study the competition between honest and hypocritical strategies. The former always help good individuals, whereas the latter do so only in private interactions. We describe conditions for the evolution of honest strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Hisashi Ohtsuki & Yoh Iwasa & Martin A Nowak, 2015. "Reputation Effects in Public and Private Interactions," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-11, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pcbi00:1004527
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004527
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    Cited by:

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    2. Quan, Ji & Nie, Jiacheng & Chen, Wenman & Wang, Xianjia, 2022. "Keeping or reversing social norms promote cooperation by enhancing indirect reciprocity," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    3. Quan, Ji & Tang, Caixia & Wang, Xianjia, 2021. "Reputation-based discount effect in imitation on the evolution of cooperation in spatial public goods games," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 563(C).
    4. Yang, Han-Xin & Yang, Jing, 2019. "Reputation-based investment strategy promotes cooperation in public goods games," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 523(C), pages 886-893.
    5. Isamu Okada, 2020. "A Review of Theoretical Studies on Indirect Reciprocity," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, July.
    6. Isamu Okada & Hitoshi Yamamoto & Satoshi Uchida, 2020. "Hybrid Assessment Scheme Based on the Stern- Judging Rule for Maintaining Cooperation under Indirect Reciprocity," Games, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, February.
    7. Quan, Ji & Tang, Caixia & Zhou, Yawen & Wang, Xianjia & Yang, Jian-Bo, 2020. "Reputation evaluation with tolerance and reputation-dependent imitation on cooperation in spatial public goods game," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    8. Li, Songjie & Bao, Wei & Dai, Yayun & Ye, Ye & Xie, Nenggang, 2022. "Emotional game and the evolution of cooperation considering the effects of reputation," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 599(C).
    9. Ming Luo & Ruguo Fan & Yingqing Zhang & Chaoping Zhu, 2020. "Environmental Governance Cooperative Behavior among Enterprises with Reputation Effect Based on Complex Networks Evolutionary Game Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(5), pages 1-18, February.

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