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Gossip: Perspective Taking to Establish Cooperation

Author

Listed:
  • Simone Righi

    (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

  • Károly Takács

    (Linköping University
    Computational Social Science - Research Center for Educational and Network Studies (CSS-RECENS), Centre for Social Sciences)

Abstract

Problems of cooperation are frequent among living organisms, but they are difficult to solve. Humans have been able to produce large-scale cooperation among unrelated individuals through reputation systems. A challenging puzzle, however, is how reputation can guide behavior if in most cases it is not shared publicly and is assigned to others privately. We confirm that it is difficult to obtain cooperation among agents playing the Prisoner’s Dilemma when reputations are individually assigned. We propose that third-party communication (gossip) can overcome this difficulty, but only under specific conditions concerning its content, amount and persistence. We show that—in order to sustain cooperation—gossip should not only be about private evaluations of others but should also include perspective taking and exchange of information about tolerance thresholds to support cooperation. This perspective taking reputational strategy can propagate and establish cooperation in the population independent of gossip frequency and population size, under various selection mechanisms of communication partners and targets, and assumptions concerning agents’ memory.

Suggested Citation

  • Simone Righi & Károly Takács, 2022. "Gossip: Perspective Taking to Establish Cooperation," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 1086-1100, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:dyngam:v:12:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s13235-022-00440-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s13235-022-00440-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Ennio Bilancini & Leonardo Boncinelli & Paolo Pin & Simon Weidenholzer, 2022. "Preface: DGAA Focused Issue on Dynamic Games and Social Networks," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 1043-1045, December.
    2. Francesca Pancotto & Simone Righi & Károly Takács, 2023. "Voluntary play increases cooperation in the presence of punishment: a lab in the field experiment," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 95(3), pages 405-428, October.

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