Reputation and reciprocity

Abstract

Reputation and reciprocity are key mechanisms for cooperation in human societies, often going hand in hand to favor prosocial behavior over selfish actions. Here we review recent researches at the interface of physics and evolutionary game theory that explored these two mechanisms. We focus on image scoring as the bearer of reputation, as well as on various types of reciprocity, including direct, indirect, and network reciprocity. We review different definitions of reputation and reciprocity dynamics, and we show how these affect the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. We consider first-order, second-order, as well as higher-order models in well-mixed and structured populations, and we review experimental works that support and inform the results of mathematical modeling and simulations. We also provide a synthesis of the reviewed researches along with an outlook in terms of six directions that seem particularly promising to explore in the future.

Keywords: Complex network; Cooperation; Evolutionary game theory; Monte Carlo method; Pattern formation; Social physics.