![]() ![]() Such situations characterize the public goods dilemma, where individuals choose between cooperating to maintain the public good at some personal cost versus free riding if there are already enough cooperative group members. Yet, if too many people engage in such free-riding behaviors, the sustainability of the public good will be undermined to the detriment of all. As consumption of resources beyond the carrying capacity limit can lead to rapid depletion of the stock, people are incentivized to take more than a fair share. Another form of free riding can occur when public goods are “common pool resources” with a carrying capacity (e.g., a fruit garden). When the maintenance of a public good (e.g., a clean shared bathroom) depends on the voluntary contributions of a critical number of individuals, an incentive exists for people to avoid bearing those costs when there are sufficient people already contributing, because those who do not contribute are seldom excluded from the benefits. However, there are two ways that free riding – or the exploitation of others’ cooperation to avoid cooperating – may arise ( Apesteguia and Maier-Rigaud, 2006). The optimal solution occurs when everyone equally contributes to the provisioning of public goods. The “public goods game” is one such well-studied game-theoretic scenario that affords an examination of people’s motivations to partake in the maintenance of public goods, or commodities and services that are available to all members of a society ( Olson, 1965 Hardin, 1968). Game theory provides a framework to understand strategic decision-making under interdependent payoff structures known as “games” in which a player’s outcomes depend on the decisions of other players. In so doing, we broaden the accessibility of EGT to a wider audience, highlight the utility and limits of EGT for COVID-19 research, and encourage more work in this important area. We also consider factors beyond free riding that reduce compliance rates, such as socioeconomic inequality and the emerging problem of conspiracy theory-driven noncooperation that appears immune to free-rider suppression mechanisms. As such, the current paper aims to introduce the broader ideas of EGT, describe free-riding behavior in the context of COVID-19, and outline possible mechanisms that may inhibit them. 72), not least because “continued noncompliance eventually will degrade any benefit associated with these practices.” Such behaviors also do injustice “especially to high-risk groups, people with diseases, and the health workforce trying to treat these patient groups and save their lives” ( Paakkari and Okan, 2020, p. Indeed, there have been calls for more studies on free riding to make sense of uncooperative behavior during COVID-19 ( Naso, 2020, p. ![]() From this perspective, people who disregard safety procedures, such as wearing masks and maintaining social distance, can be understood as free riders because they get to enjoy the benefits of communal safety despite not doing their part to uphold it ( Cato et al., 2020). We suggest that evolutionary game theory (EGT) and, more specifically, the public goods perspective can significantly add to this discussion and enhance our understanding of human behavior during a global pandemic. The numerous articles on COVID-19 to date represent an impressive effort to come to terms with, inform about, and manage the crisis. Together, the current paper outlines the social dynamics that occur in public goods dilemmas involving the spread of infectious disease, highlights the utility and limits of evolutionary game-theoretic approaches for COVID-19 management, and suggests novel directions based on emerging challenges to cooperation. We also highlight factors beyond free riding that reduce compliance rates, such as the emergence of conspiratorial thinking, which seriously undermine the effectiveness of measures to suppress free riding. At the same time, humans appear to carry a suite of evolved psychological mechanisms aimed at curbing free riding in order to ensure the continued provision of public goods, which can be leveraged to develop more effective measures to promote compliance with regulations. From this perspective, the COVID-19 situation can be conceptualized as a dilemma where people who neglect safety precautions act as free riders, because they get to enjoy the benefits of decreased health risk from others’ compliance with policies despite not contributing to or even undermining public safety themselves. Evolutionary game theory and public goods games offer an important framework to understand cooperation during pandemics. ![]()
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