Reacting Differently to Adverse Ties Promotes Cooperation in Social Networks

We investigate how diversity in individual responses to unwanted interactions affects the evolution of cooperation modeled as a 2-person prisoner's dilemma. We combine adaptive networks and evolutionary game theory, showing analytically how the coevolution of social dynamics, network dynamics, and behavioral differences benefit the entire community even though myopic individuals still act in their own interest. As defectors are wiped out, surviving cooperators maintain the full diversity of behavioral types, establishing cooperation as a robust evolutionary strategy. The present framework can be used in other problems where the feedback between topology and dynamics affects the overall behavior of the system.