Altruistic punishment can help resolve tragedy of the commons social dilemmas

Social dilemmas force individuals to choose between cooperation, which benefits a group, and defection which benefits the individual. The unfortunate outcome in most social dilemmas is mutual defection where nobody benefits. Researchers frequently use mathematical games such as public goods games to help identify circumstances that might improve cooperation levels within a population. Altruistic punishment has shown promise in these games. Many real-world social dilemmas are expressed via a tragedy of the commons metaphor. This paper describes an investigation designed to see if altruistic punishment might work in tragedy of the commons social dilemmas. Simulation results indicate not only does it help resolve a tragedy of the commons but it also effectively deals with the associated first-order and second-order free rider problems.