Group-size dependent synergy in heterogeneous populations

When people collaborate, they expect more in return than a simple sum of their efforts. This observation is at the heart of the so-called public goods game, where the participants’ contributions are multiplied by an r synergy factor before they are distributed among group members. However, a larger group could be more effective, which can be described by a larger synergy factor. To elaborate on the possible consequences, in this study, we introduce a model where the population has different sizes of groups, and the applied synergy factor depends on the size of the group. We examine different options when the increment of r is linear, slow, or sudden, but in all cases, the cooperation level is higher than that in a population where the homogeneous r factor is used. In the latter case, smaller groups perform better; however, this behavior is reversed when synergy increases for larger groups. Hence, the entire community benefits because larger groups are rewarded better. Notably, a similar qualitative behavior can be observed for other heterogeneous topologies, including scale-free interaction graphs.