eprintid: 1539044 rev_number: 15 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/01/53/90/44 datestamp: 2017-03-17 16:43:40 lastmod: 2020-02-12 14:43:22 status_changed: 2017-03-17 16:43:40 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: D'Orsogna, MR creators_name: Kendall, R creators_name: McBride, M creators_name: Short, MB title: Criminal Defectors Lead to the Emergence of Cooperation in an Experimental, Adversarial Game ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: A01 divisions: B03 divisions: C03 divisions: F24 note: © 2013 D'Orsogna et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. abstract: While the evolution of cooperation has been widely studied, little attention has been devoted to adversarial settings wherein one actor can directly harm another. Recent theoretical work addresses this issue, introducing an adversarial game in which the emergence of cooperation is heavily reliant on the presence of “Informants,” actors who defect at first-order by harming others, but who cooperate at second-order by punishing other defectors. We experimentally study this adversarial environment in the laboratory with human subjects to test whether Informants are indeed critical for the emergence of cooperation. We find in these experiments that, even more so than predicted by theory, Informants are crucial for the emergence and sustenance of a high cooperation state. A key lesson is that successfully reaching and maintaining a low defection society may require the cultivation of criminals who will also aid in the punishment of others. date: 2013-04-23 date_type: published official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061458 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1206670 doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061458 lyricists_name: Kendall, Ryan lyricists_id: RKEND78 actors_name: Kendall, Ryan actors_id: RKEND78 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: PLoS ONE volume: 8 number: 4 article_number: e61458 issn: 1932-6203 editors_name: Perc, M citation: D'Orsogna, MR; Kendall, R; McBride, M; Short, MB; (2013) Criminal Defectors Lead to the Emergence of Cooperation in an Experimental, Adversarial Game. PLoS ONE , 8 (4) , Article e61458. 10.1371/journal.pone.0061458 <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0061458>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1539044/1/PlosOneCriminalExperimentalKendall.pdf