Subduing always defecting mutants by multiplayer reactive strategies: non-reciprocity versus generosity

A completely non-generous and reciprocal population of players can create a robust cooperating state that cannot be invaded by always defecting free riders if the interactions among players are repeated for long enough. However, strict non-generosity and strict reciprocity are ideal concepts, and may not even be desirable sometimes. Therefore, to what extent generosity or non-reciprocity can be allowed while still not be swamped by the mutants, is a natural question. In this paper, we not only ask this question but furthermore ask how generosity comparatively fares against non-reciprocity in this context. For mathematical concreteness, we work within the framework of multiplayer repeated prisoner’s dilemma game with reactive strategies in a finite and an infinite population; and explore the aforementioned questions through the effects of the benefit to cost ratio, the interaction group size, and the population size.