We study the emergence of cooperation in dynamic, anonymous social networks, such as in online communities. We examine prisoner\u2019s dilemma played under a social matching protocol, where individuals form random links to partners with whom they can interact. Cooperation results in mutual benefits, whereas defection results in a high short-term gain. Moreover, an agent that defects can escape reciprocity by virtue of anonymity: it is always possible for an agent to abandon his history and re-enter the network as a new user. We find that cooperation is sustainable at equilibrium in such a model. Indeed, cooperation allows an individual to interact with an increasing number of other cooperators, resulting in the formation of a type of social capital. This process arises endogenously, without the need for potentially harmful social enforcement rules. Additionally, for a rich class of parameter settings, our model predicts a stable coexistence of cooperating and defecting agents at equilibrium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We study the emergence of cooperation in dynamic, anonymous social networks, such as in online communities. We examine prisoner\u2019s dilemma played under a social matching protocol, where individuals form random links to partners with whom they can interact. Cooperation results in mutual benefits, whereas defection results in a high short-term gain. Moreover, an agent that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13546,13559],"msr-publication-type":[193716],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-319988","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-computational-sciences-mathematics","msr-research-area-social-sciences","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"ACM","msr_edition":"ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce 2010 and Workshop on Information in Networks (WIN) 2010","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2010-01-01","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"319991","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","title":"Emergence of Cooperation in Anonymous Social Networks Through Social Capital","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Emergence-of-Cooperation-in-Anonymous-Social-Networks.pdf","id":319991,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"nicimm","user_id":33086,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=nicimm"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"brlucier","user_id":31303,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=brlucier"},{"type":"text","value":"Brian Rogers","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[],"msr_project":[],"publication":[],"video":[],"download":[],"msr_publication_type":"inproceedings","related_content":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/319988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/319988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":525668,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/319988\/revisions\/525668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-content-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-content-type?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-product-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-product-type?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-platform?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-download-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-download-source?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=319988"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=319988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}