How the competitive altruism leads to bistable homogeneous states of cooperation or defection

Abstract

Our recent minimal model of cooperation (P. Gawronski et al, Physica A 388 (2009) 3581) is modified as to allow for time-dependent altruism. This evolution is based on reputation of other agents, which in turn depends on history. We show that this modification leads to two absorbing states of the whole system, where the cooperation flourishes in one state and is absent in another one. The effect is compared with the results obtained with the model of indirect reciprocity, where the altruism of agents is constant.