Indirect Reciprocity with Environmental Feedback

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Jiang, Yishen, Wang, Xin, Wei, Ming, Zhu, Wenqiang, Liu, Longzhao, Zheng, Hongwei, Tang, Shaoting
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Jiang, Yishen
Wang, Xin
Wei, Ming
Zhu, Wenqiang
Liu, Longzhao
Zheng, Hongwei
Tang, Shaoting
author_facet Jiang, Yishen
Wang, Xin
Wei, Ming
Zhu, Wenqiang
Liu, Longzhao
Zheng, Hongwei
Tang, Shaoting
contents Indirect reciprocity maintains cooperation in stranger societies by mapping individual behaviors onto reputation signals via social norms. Existing theoretical frameworks assume static environments with constant resources and fixed payoff structures. However, in real-world systems, individuals' strategic behaviors not only shape their reputation but also induce collective-level resource changes in ecological, economic, or other external environments, which in turn reshape the incentives governing future individual actions. To overcome this limitation, we establish a co-evolutionary framework that couples moral assessment, strategy updating, and environmental dynamics, allowing the payoff structure to dynamically adjust in response to the ecological consequences of collective actions. We find that this environmental feedback mechanism helps lower the threshold for the emergence of cooperation, enabling the system to spontaneously transition from a low-cooperation state to a stable high-cooperation regime, thereby reducing the dependence on specific initial conditions. Furthermore, while lenient norms demonstrate adaptability in static environments, norms with strict discrimination are shown to be crucial for curbing opportunism and maintaining evolutionary resilience in dynamic settings. Our results reveal the evolutionary dynamics of coupled systems involving reputation institutions and environmental constraints, offering a new theoretical perspective for understanding collective cooperation and social governance in complex environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_02553
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Indirect Reciprocity with Environmental Feedback
Jiang, Yishen
Wang, Xin
Wei, Ming
Zhu, Wenqiang
Liu, Longzhao
Zheng, Hongwei
Tang, Shaoting
Physics and Society
Dynamical Systems
Populations and Evolution
Indirect reciprocity maintains cooperation in stranger societies by mapping individual behaviors onto reputation signals via social norms. Existing theoretical frameworks assume static environments with constant resources and fixed payoff structures. However, in real-world systems, individuals' strategic behaviors not only shape their reputation but also induce collective-level resource changes in ecological, economic, or other external environments, which in turn reshape the incentives governing future individual actions. To overcome this limitation, we establish a co-evolutionary framework that couples moral assessment, strategy updating, and environmental dynamics, allowing the payoff structure to dynamically adjust in response to the ecological consequences of collective actions. We find that this environmental feedback mechanism helps lower the threshold for the emergence of cooperation, enabling the system to spontaneously transition from a low-cooperation state to a stable high-cooperation regime, thereby reducing the dependence on specific initial conditions. Furthermore, while lenient norms demonstrate adaptability in static environments, norms with strict discrimination are shown to be crucial for curbing opportunism and maintaining evolutionary resilience in dynamic settings. Our results reveal the evolutionary dynamics of coupled systems involving reputation institutions and environmental constraints, offering a new theoretical perspective for understanding collective cooperation and social governance in complex environments.
title Indirect Reciprocity with Environmental Feedback
topic Physics and Society
Dynamical Systems
Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.02553