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Cited by 285

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 55 of the 55 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Probabilistic sharing solves the problem of costly punishment

Open access
Chen, Xiaojie, Szolnoki, Attila, Perc, Matjaž·2014·New Journal of Physics

Abstract

Cooperators that refuse to participate in sanctioning defectors create the second-order free-rider problem. Such cooperators will not be punished because they contribute to the public good, but they also eschew the costs associated with punishing defectors. Altruistic punishers—those that cooperate and punish—are at a disadvantage, and it is puzzling how such behaviour has evolved. We show that sharing the responsibility to sanction defectors rather than relying on certain individuals to do so permanently can solve the problem of costly punishment. Inspired by the fact that humans have strong but also emotional tendencies for fair play, we consider probabilistic sanctioning as the simplest way of distributing the duty. In well-mixed populations the public goods game is transformed into a coordination game with full cooperation and defection as the two stable equilibria, while in structured populations pattern formation supports additional counterintuitive solutions that are reminiscent of Parrondoʼs paradox.

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Metadata

Authors
Chen, X., Szolnoki, A., & Perc, M.
Venue
New Journal of Physics
Published
2014-08-07
Volume
16
Issue
8
Pages
083016
ISSN
1367-2630 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2171286297
Cited by
285
References
55
FWCI
61.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
gold

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Probabilistic sharing solves the problem of costly punishment. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1088/1367-2630/16/8/083016
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Chen, X., Szolnoki, A., & Perc, M. (2014). Probabilistic sharing solves the problem of costly punishment. New Journal of Physics. https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/16/8/083016

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