It has been suggested that individuals that play scrounger could also, by virtue of their head position, be alert for predators and hence contribute to antipredatory vigilance.
Burns encouraged a campaign of propaganda to discredit the principle of labour colonies, which were presented as money-wasting ventures that pampered idlers and scroungers.
When individuals are free to choose between producer and scrounger, frequency dependent selection results in a stable mixture of both behaviors where each receives similar payoff.
If the scrounger tactic is compatible with antipredatory vigilance, then an increase in antipredatory vigilance should lead to the detection of more joining opportunities, and hence more joining.
When the expected stable frequency of the scrounger tactic was altered by changing the availability of seeds, the relative frequency of hopping with the head up changed accordingly.