Open-minded imitation can achieve near-optimal vaccination coverage

摘要: Studies of voluntary vaccination decisions by rational individuals predict that the population will reach a Nash equilibrium with coverage below societal optimum. Human decision-making involves mechanisms in addition to calculations self-interest, such as imitation successful others. Previous research had shown alone cannot achieve better results. Under realistic choices parameters it may lead even equilibrium. However, these findings rely on widely accepted use Fermi functions for modeling probabilities switching another strategy. We consider here more general functional form probabilities. It is consistent give best fits empirical data cited psychological experiment and one additional parameter $\alpha$. This can be loosely interpreted degree open-mindedness. found both means simulations analytically sufficiently high values $\alpha$ drive arbitrarily close