The effect of emotional diffusion on the evolution of cooperation in multiplex networks

Understanding how emotions influence the evolution of group cooperation has become a focus in spatial evolutionary game research. Previous studies predominantly hypothesize that emotions impact their immediate neighbors. However, in reality, emotions possess the characteristic of infection: they not only influence close neighbors but also spread widely, affecting distant individuals and shaping their behaviors across networks. To capture this dynamic, we propose an emotion-based evolutionary game model in multiplex networks to examine the influence of emotional diffusion on the evolution of cooperation. Computer simulations demonstrate that the diffusion of emotions significantly impacts group cooperation in nonlinear ways. Additionally, we discover nonlinear effect of factors such as unit emotional value, cumulative length of emotion, emotional diffusion rate, and emotional diffusion threshold on the evolution of group behavior. Finally, we observe significant differences in how various network structures influence the evolution of group behavior between the emotional diffusion layer and the interaction layer.