Indirect reciprocity with private, noisy, and incomplete information

Abstract

Indirect reciprocity explores how humans act when their reputation is at stake, and which social norms they use to assess the actions of others. A crucial question in indirect reciprocity is which social norms can maintain stable cooperation in a society. Past research has highlighted eight such norms, called “leading-eight” strategies. This past research, however, is based on the assumption that all relevant information about other population members is publicly available and that everyone agrees on who is good or bad. Instead, here we explore the reputation dynamics when information is private and noisy. We show that under these conditions, most leading-eight strategies fail to evolve. Those leading-eight strategies that do evolve are unable to sustain full cooperation.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Nov 14, 2018
Source ID
10.1073/pnas.1810565115

Entities

People

  • Christian Hilbe
  • Josef Tkadlec
  • Krishnendu Chatterjee
  • Laura Schmid
  • Martin A. Nowak

Organizations

  • Austrian Science Fund
  • European Research Council
  • Harvard University
  • Institute of Science and Technology Austria
  • Office of Naval Research

Tags

Readers

  • Economics
  • Organizational Psychology.