Does the conformity save us when information advantage fails

Abstract Evolutionary spatial Prisoner’s Dilemma Game (PDG) has been widely applied to study the possible mechanisms of cooperation promotion. In this paper, we discuss the conformity, information advantage and the coupling between them. We assume there is global conformity for all the players when no decision in the best-takes-all strategy provides a better payoff. By assuming conformity, the neighborhood diversity is then introduced by allowing normal (advantage) players to see 4 (8) neighbors. With these modifications in place, the model is still a classical game theory model with a deterministic property, and is capable of describing how different types of players with different conformities can interact among themselves without the violation of payoff priority. We show that the global conformity, though subtle in the pursuing the payoff, significantly changes the cooperation. On comparing 4 extreme cases with different combinations of conformity and advantage, the results suggest that conformity is more important in the promotion of cooperation. In addition, the simulation of conformal conflict presents a scenario wherein the cooperators may extend to the other side of the conformal boundary.