Public Goods Game on Complex Networks: the interplay between conformity and topology

Human cooperation is a phenomenon that has been extensively studied, and to date several explanations have been proposed, from network reciprocity to behavioral mechanisms that incorporate social and cognitive aspects.

In this work, we studied the combined effect of conformity and network structure on the evolution of cooperation in the spatial Public Goods Game.

By assigning agents different individual sensitivities to payoffs and neighborhood behavior, we explored the cooperative dynamics of this heterogeneous population on both regular and complex topologies.

Our results show how the interaction between conformity and the distinctive features of each network can lead to very different outcomes, from the promotion of cooperation in regular topologies to null or negative effects in heterogeneous networks.