Eur. Phys. J. B 73, 455-459 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-00008-7

Promotion of cooperation induced by nonuniform payoff allocation in spatial public goods game

¹ Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, P.R. China
² Department of Electrical Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA
³ Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Hong Kong SAR, P.R. China
⁴ Research Center for Complex System Science, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and Shanghai Academy of System Science, Shanghai, 200093, P.R. China

Corresponding authors: hxyang@mail.ustc.edu.cn bhwang@ustc.edu.cn

Received: 28 July 2009
Revised: 22 November 2009
Published online: 15 January 2010

Abstract

A nonuniform payoff allocation mechanism is proposed for spatial public goods games where individuals are nodes on a scale-free network. Each individual is assigned a weight k_i^α, where k_i is the degree of individual i and α is an adjustable parameter that controls the degree of diversity in individuals' profits. During the evolution progress, the allocation of payoff on individual i is assumed to be proportional to its weight. Individuals synchronously update their strategies according to the stochastic rule with a fixed noise level. It is found that there exists an optimal value of α which yields the highest level of cooperation. Other pertinent quantities, including the payoff and the probability of finding a node playing as cooperator versus the degree, are also investigated computationally and analytically. Our results suggest that a suitable degree of diversity among individuals can promote the emergence of cooperation.