Cooperative behavior in a model of evolutionary snowdrift games with N-person interactions

Abstract

We propose a model of evolutionary snowdrift game with $N$-person interactions and study the effects of multi-person interactions on the emergence of cooperation. An exact $N$-th-order equation for the equilibrium density of cooperators $x^*$ is derived for a well-mixed population using the approach of replicator dynamics. The results show that the extent of cooperation drops with increasing cost-to-benefit ratio and the number $N$ of interaction persons in a group, with $x^{*}\sim1/N$ for large $N$. An algorithm for numerical simulations is constructed for the model. The simulation results are in good agreements with theoretical results of the replicator dynamics.