Computational Approaches to Studying the Co-Evolution of Networks and Behavior in Social Dilemmas (Wiley Series in Computational and Quantitative Social Science) by Rense Corten

If one is familiar with the Prisoner’s Dilemma, together with its application to both interpreting and modelling social dilemma games, this book should appeal to him or her. Unlike the classical Prisoner’s Dilemma with its focus on the circumstances under which people (players) will cooperate, this book addresses coordination problems (games) for which the players involved can benefit from cooperation but have an incentive to take advantage of each other—leading to less than optimal outcomes at the collective (societal) level. Often, cooperative relations, together with their incentives, do not occur in isolation but are embedded in a social context where the opinions of friends, family and colleagues influence choices and decisions. The author argues that the value of the coordination game as an explanatory model has been under-valued in comparison with the attention given to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Under what conditions will players behave in such a way that they obtain the socially efficient outcome? Why do people cooperate? Are they motivated by considerations of fairness? Understanding social networks can play an important role in addressing these, and other, questions! The development of theoretical arguments is appropriately illustrated with practical applications, and the author presents four studies that comprise Chapters 2–5 of the text, which collectively address two fundamental questions: