Cooperation as the Outcome of a Social Differentiation Process in Metamimetic Games

Abstract

What are the principles underlying social differentiation ? Socio-economic models generally consider agents that pursue some particular ends given prior to their social activity. In this paper we propose an alternative in the framework of metamimetic games. We claim that the distribution of ends in a popultation is the outcome of social interactions and not only what drives them. We take the example of the prisoner’s dilemma in spatial games to illustrate how cultural co-evolution can lead to a spontaneous differentiation of ends in a population with a high level of cooperation. From this perspective, the question is not the traditional "How can altruists ’survive’ in a selfish worlds?" but rather to understand how heterogeneous ends can reinforce or limit each other to collectively entail the emergence of a social cooperative order.