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When group members claim a portion of limited resources, it is tempting to invest more effort to get a larger share. However, if everyone acts similarly, they all get the same piece they would obtain without extra effort. This is the involution game dilemma that can be detected in several real-life situations. It is also a realistic assumption that resources are not uniform in space and time, which may influence the system’s resulting involution level. We here introduce spatio-temporal heterogeneity of social resources and explore their consequences on involution. When spatial heterogeneity is applied, network reciprocity can mitigate the involution for rich resources, which would be critical otherwise in a homogeneous population. Interestingly, when the resource level is modest, spatial heterogeneity causes more intensive involution in a system where most cooperator agents, who want to keep investment at a low level, are …