Evolution of Cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma

Abstract

This text offers a review of the literature on the evolution of cooperation in
the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The scope of the article is limited to the two-person
repeated game and with respect to the emergence of cooperation it is
focused upon the mechanism of direct reciprocity. The results of
mathematical analysis and those of the related agent-based models are
presented side by side. The various ways of examining the success of
strategies are the dominant topic in the first part of the article. The second
part describes multi-agent simulations and their outcomes and argues that
the three most important factors (at least from the international relations
point of view) influencing prospects of cooperation are noise, the structure
of interactions, and the payoff matrix.