{"doi":"10.1073/pnas.1115219109","title":"The take-it-or-leave-it option allows small penalties to overcome social dilemmas","abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Self-interest frequently causes individuals engaged in joint enterprises to choose actions that are counterproductive. Free-riders can invade a society of cooperators, causing a tragedy of the commons. Such social dilemmas can be overcome by positive or negative incentives. Even though an incentive-providing institution may protect a cooperative society from invasion by free-riders, it cannot always convert a society of free-riders to cooperation. In the latter case, both norms, cooperation and defection, are stable: To avoid a collapse to full defection, cooperators must be sufficiently numerous initially. A society of free-riders is then caught in a social trap, and the institution is unable to provide an escape, except at a high, possibly prohibitive cost. Here, we analyze the interplay of (\n                    <jats:italic>a</jats:italic>\n                    ) incentives provided by institutions and (\n                    <jats:italic>b</jats:italic>\n                    ) the effects of voluntary participation. We show that this combination fundamentally improves the efficiency of incentives. In particular, optional participation allows institutions punishing free-riders to overcome the social dilemma at a much lower cost, and to promote a globally stable regime of cooperation. This removes the social trap and implies that whenever a society of cooperators cannot be invaded by free-riders, it will necessarily become established in the long run, through social learning, irrespective of the initial number of cooperators. We also demonstrate that punishing provides a “lighter touch” than rewarding, guaranteeing full cooperation at considerably lower cost.\n                  </jats:p>","journal":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences","year":2012,"id":675320,"datarank":0.7574784010874307,"base_score":5.049856007249537,"endowment":5.049856007249537,"self_citation_contribution":0.7574784010874307,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.7574784010874307,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":155,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1764434,"name":"Åke Brännström","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":180314,"name":"Ulf Dieckmann","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1764435,"name":"Karl Sigmund","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1764433,"name":"Tatsuya Sasaki","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"The take-it-or-leave-it option allows small penalties to overcome social dilemmas","abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Self-interest frequently causes individuals engaged in joint enterprises to choose actions that are counterproductive. Free-riders can invade a society of cooperators, causing a tragedy of the commons. Such social dilemmas can be overcome by positive or negative incentives. Even though an incentive-providing institution may protect a cooperative society from invasion by free-riders, it cannot always convert a society of free-riders to cooperation. In the latter case, both norms, cooperation and defection, are stable: To avoid a collapse to full defection, cooperators must be sufficiently numerous initially. A society of free-riders is then caught in a social trap, and the institution is unable to provide an escape, except at a high, possibly prohibitive cost. Here, we analyze the interplay of (\n                    <jats:italic>a</jats:italic>\n                    ) incentives provided by institutions and (\n                    <jats:italic>b</jats:italic>\n                    ) the effects of voluntary participation. We show that this combination fundamentally improves the efficiency of incentives. In particular, optional participation allows institutions punishing free-riders to overcome the social dilemma at a much lower cost, and to promote a globally stable regime of cooperation. This removes the social trap and implies that whenever a society of cooperators cannot be invaded by free-riders, it will necessarily become established in the long run, through social learning, irrespective of the initial number of cooperators. We also demonstrate that punishing provides a “lighter touch” than rewarding, guaranteeing full cooperation at considerably lower cost.\n                  </jats:p>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":5.049856007249537,"endowment":5.049856007249537,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"22232694","pmcid":"PMC3268313","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W2071212584","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"Austrian Science Fund FWF","grant_id":"I 106","title":null}],"total_grants":1,"fwci":22.1914,"citation_percentile":0.99525239,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2012,"count":4},{"year":2013,"count":12},{"year":2014,"count":14},{"year":2015,"count":13},{"year":2016,"count":9},{"year":2017,"count":7},{"year":2018,"count":12},{"year":2019,"count":12},{"year":2020,"count":10},{"year":2021,"count":10},{"year":2022,"count":8},{"year":2023,"count":15},{"year":2024,"count":16},{"year":2025,"count":9},{"year":2026,"count":4}],"oa_status":"bronze","license":null,"oa_locations":[{"url":"https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/109/4/1165.full.pdf","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/109/4/1165.full.pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1115219109","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1115219109","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22232694","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/9984/1/The%20take-it-or-leave-it%20option%20allows%20small%20penalties%20to%20overcome%20social%20dilemmas.pdf","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/3268313","host_type":"repository"}],"fields_of_study":["Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies","Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation","Culture, Economy, and Development Studies","Biological Evolution","Cooperative Behavior","Game Theory","Games, Experimental","Group Processes","Humans","Models, Psychological","Motivation","Punishment","Reward"],"mesh_terms":["Cooperative Behavior","Biological Evolution","Game Theory","Games, Experimental","Group Processes","Humans","Models, Psychological","Motivation","Punishment","Reward"],"keywords":["Tragedy of the commons","Free rider problem","Incentive","Social dilemma","Free riding","Dilemma","Institution","Microeconomics","Business","Economics","Commons","Law and economics","Public economics","Public good","Political science","Law"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-16T21:01:26.294605Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}