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Cited by 1,399

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 5 of the 5 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Emergence of cooperation and evolutionary stability in finite populations

Open access
Nowak, Martin A., Sasaki, Akira, Taylor, Christine, Fudenberg, Drew·2004·Nature
DOI 10.1038/nature02414
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Abstract

To explain the evolution of cooperation by natural selection has been a major goal of biologists since Darwin. Cooperators help others at a cost to themselves, while defectors receive the benefits of altruism without providing any help in return. The standard game dynamical formulation is the ‘Prisoner's Dilemma’, in which two players have a choice between cooperation and defection. In the repeated game, cooperators using direct reciprocity cannot be exploited by defectors, but it is unclear how such cooperators can arise in the first place. In general, defectors are stable against invasion by cooperators. This understanding is based on traditional concepts of evolutionary stability and dynamics in infinite populations. Here we study evolutionary game dynamics in finite populations. We show that a single cooperator using a strategy like ‘tit-for-tat’ can invade a population of defectors with a probability that corresponds to a net selective advantage. We specify the conditions required for natural selection to favour the emergence of cooperation and define evolutionary stability in finite populations.

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Citations

Cites

Show all 5 references

Research works printed but not linked: 26

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Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
Nowak, M. A., Sasaki, A., Taylor, C., & Fudenberg, D.
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2004-04
Volume
428
Issue
6983
Pages
646-650
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/nature02414
OpenAlex
W2127808790
Cited by
1,399
References
5
FWCI
144.37
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Emergence of cooperation and evolutionary stability in finite populations. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/nature02414
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Nowak, M. A., Sasaki, A., Taylor, C., & Fudenberg, D. (2004). Emergence of cooperation and evolutionary stability in finite populations. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02414

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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