Social Cooperation and Disharmony in Communities Mediated through Common Pool Resource Exploitation

H. S. Sugiarto, J. S. Lansing, N. N. Chung, C. H. Lai, S. A. Cheong, and L. Y. Chew
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 208301 – Published 16 May 2017
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Abstract

It was theorized that when a society exploits a shared resource, the system can undergo extreme phase transition from full cooperation in abiding by a social agreement, to full defection from it. This was shown to happen in an integrated society with complex social relationships. However, real-world agents tend to segregate into communities whose interactions contain features of the associated community structure. We found that such social segregation softens the abrupt extreme transition through the emergence of multiple intermediate phases composed of communities of cooperators and defectors. Phase transitions thus now occur through these intermediate phases which avert the instantaneous collapse of social cooperation within a society. While this is beneficial to society, it nonetheless costs society in two ways. First, the return to full cooperation from full defection at the phase transition is no longer immediate. Community linkages have rendered greater societal inertia such that the switch back is now typically stepwise rather than a single change. Second, there is a drastic increase in social disharmony within the society due to the greater tension in the relationship between segregated communities of defectors and cooperators. Intriguingly, these results on multiple phases with its associated phenomenon of social disharmony are found to characterize the level of cooperation within a society of Balinese farmers who exploit water for rice production.

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  • Received 6 July 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.208301

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Interdisciplinary PhysicsNetworksNonlinear DynamicsStatistical Physics & Thermodynamics

Authors & Affiliations

H. S. Sugiarto1,2, J. S. Lansing2,3,4, N. N. Chung1,2, C. H. Lai5, S. A. Cheong1,2, and L. Y. Chew1,2,*

  • 1Division of Physics and Applied Physics, Nanyang Technological University, 21 Nanyang Link, Singapore 637371, Singapore
  • 2Complexity Institute, Nanyang Technological University, 18 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 637723, Singapore
  • 3Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501, USA
  • 4Stockholm Resilience Centre, Kräftriket 2B, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
  • 5Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117542, Singapore

  • *Corresponding author. lockyue@ntu.edu.sg

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Issue

Vol. 118, Iss. 20 — 19 May 2017

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