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A general evolutionary framework for the role of intuition and deliberation in cooperation

Nature Human Behaviour volume 1, Article number: 0152 (2017) Cite this article

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Abstract

In the experimental and theoretical literature on social heuristics, the case has been made for dual-process cooperation. Empirical evidence is thought to be consistent with the idea that people tend to be nice before thinking twice. A recent theoretical paper moreover suggests that this is also the type of dual process one would expect from evolution. In ‘Intuition, deliberation, and the evolution of cooperation’ by Bear and Rand1, natural selection never favours agents who use deliberation to override the impulse to defect, while deliberation can be favoured if it serves to undermine cooperation in interactions without future repercussions. Here we show that this conclusion depends on a seemingly innocuous assumption about the distribution of the costs of deliberation, and that with different distributions, dual-process defectors can also evolve. Dual-process defectors intuitively defect, but use deliberation to switch to cooperation when it is in their self-interest to do so (that is, when future repercussions exist). The more general model also shows that there is a variety of strategies that combine intuition and deliberation with Bayesian learning and strategic ignorance. Our results thereby unify and generalize findings from different, seemingly unrelated parts of the literature.

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Figure 1: Dual-process cooperators and dual-process defectors.
Figure 2: Adaptive dynamics for different values of p.
Figure 3: Repeat probabilities in the repeated prisoner’s dilemma with unknown repeat probability δ.
Figure 4: Strategic ignorance expands the parameter space where full cooperation is possible.

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Acknowledgements

This paper benefited from the suggestions of audiences at the Amsterdam Brain and Cognition Symposium (Universiteit van Amsterdam), at the Gummersbacher Kolloquium (Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf) and at the UECE Lisbon Meetings in Game Theory and Applications (Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, Lisbon). We thank A. Bear and D. Rand for comments. Financial support of the Research Priority Area Behavioral Economics of the University of Amsterdam is gratefully acknowledged. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CREED, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 11, Amsterdam, 1018 WB, The Netherlands

    Stephan Jagau & Matthijs van Veelen

  2. EpiCenter, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, Maastricht, 6200 MD, The Netherlands

    Stephan Jagau

  3. Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Matthijs van Veelen

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  1. Stephan Jagau
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S.J. and M.v.V. designed research, performed research and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Matthijs van Veelen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary Methods 1–3, Supplementary Figures 1–14, Supplementary References (PDF 1249 kb)

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Jagau, S., van Veelen, M. A general evolutionary framework for the role of intuition and deliberation in cooperation. Nat Hum Behav 1, 0152 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0152

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