Homogeneity of Degree in Complex Social Networks as a Collective Good

• Publication year: 2010

Georgia State University Law Review

Volume 24 , „

Article 7

Issue 4 Summer 2008

3-21-2012

Homogeneity of Degree in Complex Social Networks as a Collective Good

Gregory Todd Jones

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Recommended Citation

Jones, Gregory Todd (2007) "Homogeneity of Degree in Complex Social Networks as a Collective Good," Georgia State University Law Review: Vol. 24: Iss. 4, Article 7.

Available at: http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/gsulr/vol24/iss4/7

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HOMOGENEITY OF DEGREE IN COMPLEX SOCIAL NETWORKS AS A COLLECTIVE GOOD

Gregory Todd Jones^* Douglas H. Yanjj** Reidar Hagtvedt,** & Travis Lloyd***

Introduction

Cooperation has played a prominent role in the evolution of many species, from the simplest single-celled organisms¹ to fish,² from birds³ to canines⁴ and felines,⁵ and from non-human primates⁶ to

* Faculty Research Fellow, Georgia State University College of Law; Director of Research, Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution; Director, Computational Laboratory for Complex Adaptive Systems. Jones and Yarn were partially funded by a generous grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Much of this work was completed while Jones was a visitor at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn, Germany. Their gracious hospitality is gratefully acknowledged. The authors acknowledge helpful comments and suggestions from their colleagues at the 2007 NECS1 Winter School on Complex Systems at MIT, the Society for the Evolutionary Analysis of Law, the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, and the North American Association for Computational Social and Organization Sciences.

** Professor of Law, Georgia State University College of Law; Executive Director, Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution.

*** Assistant Professor, University of Alberta School of Business; Research Fellow, Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution; Director, Computational Laboratory for Complex Adaptive Systems.

**** Research Fellow, Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution; M.P.H. Candidate, Law and Public Health Concentration, Harvard University.

1. See generally scott A. boorman & paul R. levitt, the genetics of altruism (1980); Bernard J. Crespi, The Evolution of Social Behavior in Microorganisms, 16 trends ecology & evolution 178 (2001); Gregory J. Velicer et al., Developmental Cheating in the Social Bacterium Myxococcus Xanthus, 404 nature 598 (2000); Gregory J. Velicer, Evolution of Cooperation: Does Selfishness Restraint Lie Within? 15 current biology 173 (2005); Gregory J. Velicer, Social Strife in the Microbial World, 11 trends microbiology 330 (2003); Gregory J. Velicer & Kristina L. Stredwick, Experimental Social Evolution with Myxococcus Xanthus, 81 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 155 (2002).

2. See generally lee alan dugatkin, cooperation among animals: AN evolutionary perspective (1997); Sarah F. Brosnan et al., Observational Learning and Predator Inspection in Guppies (Poecilia Reticulata;, 109 ethology 823 (2003); Lee Alan Dugatkin, Dynamics of the Til For Tat Strategy During Predator Inspection in the Guppy (Poecilia Reticulata), 29 behav. ecology & sociobiology 127 (1991); Lee Alan Dugatkin, Tendency to Inspect Predators Predicts Mortality Risk in the Guppy, Poecilia Reticulata. 3 behav. ecology 124 (1992); Manfred Milinski, Tit for Tat in Sticklebacks and the Evolution of Cooperation, 325 nature 433 (1987).

3. See generally charles R. brown & mary bomberger brown, coloniality in the cliff

Swallow: The Effect of Group Size on Social Behavior (1996); John Faaborg et al.,

932 GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 24:4

humans,⁷ where cooperation may have had the most evolutionary

o

significance. And yet, the evolution of cooperation among self-regarding individuals remains a formidable challenge currently addressed by highly multi-disciplinary efforts that include scientists from anthropology, biology, computer science, ecology, economics, physics, political science, psychology, mathematics, sociology and numerous other fields.⁹ The puzzles posed by cooperative behavior take many forms, but at their root, all involve social dilemmas -circumstances in which individual interests are at odds with common interests. More precisely, individuals are faced with a choice between selfish behavior and prosocial, cooperative behavior where the latter imposes more cost or offers less benefit than the former. While all individuals are strictly better off being selfish, regardless of what other individuals choose to do, all individuals would be best off if enough individuals behaved cooperatively. Thus, the dilemma.¹⁰ The study of these types of problems has largely been driven by the

Confirmation of Cooperative Polyandry in the Galapagos Hawk (Buteo Galapagoensis), 36 BEHAV. Ecology & Sociobiology. 83 (1995).

4. See generally Scott Creel & Nancy Marusha Creel, The African Wild Dog: Behavior, Ecology, and conservation (2002); J. C. Fentress, Jenny Ryon, Peter J. McLeod, & G. Zvika Havkin, A Multidimensional Approach to Agonistic Behavior in Wolves, in man AND wolf: Advances, Issues and Problems in Captive Wolf Research 253 (Harry Frank ed., 1986); Franck Courchampa & David W. Macdonald, Crucial Importance of Pack Size in the African Wild Dog Lycaon Pictus, 4 Animal Conservation 169 (2001).

5. See generally TIMOTHY M. caro, cheetahs OF the serengeti PLAINS: GROUP LIVING IN AN ASOCIAL SPECIES (1994); Craig Packer & Anne E. Pusey, Cooperation and Competition Within Coalitions of Male Lions: Kin Selection or Game Theory? 296 nature 740 (1982).

6. See generally FRANS B. M. DE WAAL, CHIMPANZEE POLITICS (1982); FRANS B. M. DE WAAL,

Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (1996); Alexander Harcourt & Frans B. M. de Waal, Coalitions and alliances in Humans and Other Animals (1992); Sarah F. Brosnan & Frans B. M. de Waal, A Proximate Perspective on Reciprocal Altruism, 13 hum. nature 129 (2003).

7. See generally Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, The Nature of Human Altruism, 425 Nature 785 (2003); Dominic Johnson et al., The Puzzle of Human Cooperation, 421 nature 911 (2003); Elinor Ostrom et al., Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, 284 science 278 (1999).

8. Peter Hammerstein, Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation (2003).

9. Id.

10. See generally Robyn M. Dawes & David M. Messick, Social Dilemmas, 35 int'L J. Psychiatry 111 (2000); N. M. Gotts et al., Agent-Based Simulation in the Study of Social Dilemmas, 19 artificial Intelligence Rev. 3 (2003).

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application of evolutionary game theory¹¹ and due to their importance as generalized models of many important socio-economic situations,¹² iconic games such as the Prisoner's Dilemma have been widely employed as metaphors for the dilemma.¹³

At the same time, the study of networks, complex systems, and nonlinear dynamics has pervaded all of science,¹⁴ offering insight into such diverse concerns as the architecture of the Internet,¹⁵ the topology of food webs,¹⁶ and the metabolic network of the bacterium Escherichia coli)¹ Indeed, E.O. Wilson, who once characterized the evolution of cooperation as one of the greatest challenges for modern biology,¹⁸ more recently made a more emphatic appeal for research on complex systems.¹⁹

The greatest challenge today, not just in cell biology and ecology, but in all of science, is the accurate and complete description of complex systems. Scientists have broken down

11. For a historical development of evolutionary game theory, see generally Herbert GlNTlS, Game Theory Evolving (2000); Josef Hofbauer & Karl Sigmund, Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics (1998); John Maynard Smith, Evolution and the Theory of Games (1982); John von Neumann & Oskar Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944); William D. Hamilton, Extraordinary Sex Ratios, 156 science 477 (1967); John Maynard Smith & George R. Price, The Logic of Animal Conflict, 246 nature 15 (1993); Robert l. Trivers, The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism, 46 Q. REV. biol. 34 (1971).

12. Marco Tomassini et al., Social Dilemmas and Cooperation in Complex Networks (Dec. 22, 2006) (unpublished manuscript, available at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0612/0612225vl .pdf).

13. See generally ...