Learning to cooperate: The evolution of social rewards in repeated interactions

Understanding the behavioral and psychological mechanisms underlying social behaviors is one of the major goals of social evolutionary theory. In particular, a persistent question about animal cooperation is to what extent it is supported by other-regarding preferences. In many situations, animals adjust their behaviors through learning by responding to the rewards they experience as a consequence of their actions. Therefore, we may ask whether learning in social situations can be driven by evolved prosocial rewards. Here we develop a mathematical model in order to ask whether the mere act of cooperating with a social partner will evolve to be inherently rewarding. Individuals interact repea