The Cooperation Ceiling: Extrinsic Population Dynamics and the Intrinsic Escape

Evolutionary game theory provides a framework by which to study the emergence of cooperation in a population of self-interested actors.

In such a framework, players' decisions on whether or not to cooperate evolve according to decision rules called population dynamics.

However, often games are studied under the assumption that all individuals play under the same conditions, and many common choices of update rule are not well suited for a heterogeneous population.

In this paper, we categorise and compare four different population dynamics in such a population as ``extrinsic'', where players learn by looking outward at the payoffs of other players, and ``intrinsic'', where players look inwardly at their own attributes or potential payoffs.

We show that extrinsic population dynamics admit a ceiling on the rate of cooperation which can be exceeded by intrinsic population dynamics, and demonstrate this using the public goods game with heterogeneous contributions.