Natural tipping dynamics as catalysts of human cooperation

The importance of natural tipping elements and regime shifts is broadly recognized, and their mechanisms, risks, and interactions are increasingly well understood. However, less is known about the interrelation between social processes and regime shift dynamics. In particular, the question of how natural tipping dynamics affect sustainable collective action remains open. Here, we introduce a game-theoretic model of collective action within natural tipping dynamics. Explicit social interactions, such as reciprocity, agreements, or communication, are well-known for promoting cooperation. We exclude these in our model to study the isolated effects the tipping dynamics have on the prospects for sustainable collective action. We find that all three classic social dilemma types (Prisoner’s Dilemma, Chicken, Stag-Hunt) plus two Harmony games emerge robustly in our model’s parameter space. Thus, it is possible to transform any of these collective-action regimes into any other without explicit social processes. We highlight the flexibility of our modeling approach by analyzing agent heterogeneity, boundedly rational learning dynamics, and multiple empirical tipping elements and regime shifts. Our findings reveal the cooperation-promoting potential of the actors’ ecological embeddedness and introduce ecological reciprocity as a mechanism for the emergence of cooperation.