Preference evolution and reciprocity (Q5938047)

The preference evolution in games was considered earlier by \textit{W. Güth} and \textit{M. E. Yaari} [Explaining reciprocal behaviour in simple strategies, in: U. Witt (ed.), Explaining process and change: approaches to evolutionary economics, 23-34 (Ann Arbor, Univ. Michigan Press (1992)]. In this paper the authors provide an evolutionary theory of reciprocity as an aspect of preference interdependence. See also \textit{D. K. Levine} [Rev. Econ. Dyn. 1 , 593-622 (1998)]. It is shown that reciprocal preferences, which place negative weight on the payoffs of materialists and positive weight on the payoffs of sufficiently altruistic individuals can invade a population of materialists in a class of aggregative games under both assortative and nonassortative matching. In comparison with simpler specifications of preference interdependence(such as pure altruism or spite), the survival of such preferences is therefore less sensitive to details of the evolutionary selection process.