Aspiration-Based Risk Preference in Public Goods Game on Scale-free Networks

The public goods game on complex networks is being studied as a model for the evolution of cooperation. In the evolutionary games, players update their strategies in accordance with certain rules. This paper presents a new learning rule, in keeping with player's aspiration-based risk preference. A definition of risk preference factor is also proposed to describe the aspiration level. Our new model proves that a player will potentially take more dominant strategy if the payoff is below expectation. Our sufficient experiments and the simulation results on scale-free network indicate that our new strategy-updating rule affects the evolution of cooperation. For small multiplication factors, the frequency of cooperation increases as the aspiration level increases. For large multiplication factors, intermediate levels of aspiration prove to be optimal for the successful evolution of public cooperation.