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In peer-to-peer interaction, people have conditions to adopt different strategies against different opponents, which is called interactive diversity. Recently, the evolution of cooperation under interactive diversity has attracted much attention, but the potential cost of maintaining interactive diversity is rarely considered. Actually, individuals may need to frequently switch their strategies between interactions with different opponents. If strategy switching is costly, individuals are likely to prefer strategies that can be maintained to strategies that require frequent changes. In other words, individuals may have behavioral inertia in their interactions with different opponents. Although some studies have found that appropriate strategy switching costs or inertia can promote cooperation under interactive identity, their role under interactive diversity remains to be further discussed. The main reason is that strategy switching costs may restrain the diversity of strategies, and the differentiation of strategies is exactly the key to cooperation under interactive diversity. In this work, we are devoted to reveal the impact of strategy switching costs on the evolution of cooperation under interactive diversity. Simulation results show that appropriate strategy switching costs are also positive under interactive diversity, but higher strategy switching costs play completely different roles in different networks. Especially, cooperation in lattice network sometimes shows a non-monotonic dependence of "first increasing, second decreasing and then increasing again" on unit switching cost. These findings are of great significance for understanding the emergence of cooperation in paired interaction under interactive diversity. • We study the effect of strategy switching costs under interactive diversity. • Small switching costs can promote cooperation on multiple networks. • Medium switching costs may hinder cooperation on lattice network. • Excessive switching costs in ER network and BA network are unbearable. • The reasons for the phenomenon differences across networks are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public resource redistribution is an important means of social income regulation, which maintains social income equality by transferring payoffs to low-income groups, usually in the form of taxes and social services. Originally studied as a means of maintaining social equality, redistribution has also been used to address social dilemmas through evolutionary game theory in recent years. However, the definition of low-income groups in previous studies is not comprehensive. They are used to studying the inequality generated by participants during the game but ignore the inequality caused by initial endowment differences. At the same time, is it beneficial to the whole that redistribution requires the rich to subsidize the poor, but leads the rich to choose defection (tax evasion, etc.)? How should the redistribution mechanism work to reduce inequality while facilitating the spread of altruistic behavior? To explore whether the redistribution mechanism can reach a balance between promoting cooperation and maintaining equality of payoffs, we develop a generic public resource redistribution framework based on heterogeneous populations by a spatial public goods game model. We control redistribution preferences for willingness to cooperate and initial endowments by parameters α and β. With a heterogeneous population, we find that helping the poor through redistribution mechanisms does not have significant positive effects and may even result in exploitation of the rich; focusing on participants' willingness to cooperate rather than total investment can promote cooperation, enhance overall payoffs and reduce inequality. • A generic redistribution framework based on heterogeneous populations has been proposed. • Helping the poor does not always have a positive effect. • Focusing on willingness to cooperate can promote cooperation and reduce inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prevalence of cooperation within groups of selfish individuals is puzzling in that it contradicts with the basic premise of natural selection. Grasping the force that fosters and sustains cooperative behaviors is thus of central importance for the understandings of how companies develop and how societies thrive. In this paper, by means of evolutionary game theory, we refresh the strategy updating rule to be matched with a more realistic scenario where individuals choose someone excellent as the role model and improve themselves continuously to narrow the gap. Under the force of role model, individuals adjust their instantaneous strategy with the increment δ in the next continuous M time steps. And a new role model needs to be selected unless its payoff is more than the focal player's. The computer simulation results illustrate that the self-improvement driven by role model facilitate group cooperation significantly, and the slow but persistent self-improvement performs better. Therefore, in order to achieve higher enterprise performance and build a more harmonious society, managers and government officials should spare no effort to encourage people to keep improving themselves to keep up with their role models. • A new strategy updating rule, self-improvement driven by role model updating rule is proposed. • Players make self-improvement according to the persistent choosing reference roles. • The simulation results show that a slow but persistent self-improvemnet enhances cooperation markedly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Affected by geographical or social factors, human communities are organized with changeless groups for teamwork. Within groups, defection dominates because the payoffs of defectors are often higher than those of cooperators; among groups, higher cooperation level makes individuals wealthier. For the previous mechanism of evolutionary dynamics leading individuals to imitate the rich in their groups, defective strategy evolves. However, individuals who belong to different groups and have no direct interaction of interests actually could influence each other. Due to the similarity of environment, the strategies among groups have the channel and necessity of dissemination. To this end, we propose an evolutionary game model with inter-group selection of strategy. By simulations, the effects of groups' selection preference, group size, multiplier factor, imitation intensity and competition among groups on cooperative evolution in populations are studied. We find that when the group makes selection without preference, the intensity of the choice positively affects the level of cooperation; the strategy selection with preference can effectively increase the group cooperation rate. • An evolutionary game model considering inter-group selection of strategy is proposed. • A player in one group can imitate strategy of individuals in other groups. • The preference and other factors have been considered in evolutionary game. • Cooperation can be promoted effectively by our new mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]