Getting Along with your Neighbours - Emergent Cooperation in Networks of Adaptive Agents

The ways in which social order emerges from communication in human networks provides a model from which to draw lessons about the design of computing networks. In particular it provides lessons about the likely behaviour of swarms of intelligent agents. In human societies, cooperation and social order are maintained by a combination of laws that govern behaviour (prescription) and peer group pressure to conform. In this study we use simulations of social networks to show that both prescription and peer pressure are needed to achieve conformity. Our results show that dishonesty increases as social interaction decreases, but strongly interacting societies can promote either dishonesty as well as honesty. However, in a strongly interacting society, even a small degree of enforcement ensures almost universal conformity.