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Ignorance Is Bliss, But for Whom? The Persistent Effect of Good Will on Cooperation

Author

Listed:
  • Mike Farjam

    (Faculty of Social Sciences, Linnaeus University, Växjö 35195, Sweden)

  • Wladislaw Mill

    (School of Economics, University Jena, Jena 07743, Germany)

  • Marian Panganiban

    (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn 53113, Germany)

Abstract

Who benefits from the ignorance of others? We address this question from the point of view of a policy maker who can induce some ignorance into a system of agents competing for resources. Evolutionary game theory shows that when unconditional cooperators or ignorant agents compete with defectors in two-strategy settings, unconditional cooperators get exploited and are rendered extinct. In contrast, conditional cooperators, by utilizing some kind of reciprocity, are able to survive and sustain cooperation when competing with defectors. We study how cooperation thrives in a three-strategy setting where there are unconditional cooperators, conditional cooperators and defectors. By means of simulation on various kinds of graphs, we show that conditional cooperators benefit from the existence of unconditional cooperators in the majority of cases. However, in worlds that make cooperation hard to evolve, defectors benefit.

Suggested Citation

  • Mike Farjam & Wladislaw Mill & Marian Panganiban, 2016. "Ignorance Is Bliss, But for Whom? The Persistent Effect of Good Will on Cooperation," Games, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-19, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jgames:v:7:y:2016:i:4:p:33-:d:81426
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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