Community structure promotes the emergence of persistence behavior in social networks Cooperation phenomena are ubiquitous in social systems. In this paper, based on the Prisoner’s dilemma game model, we study the evolution of cooperation in two social networks, namely, the scientific collaboration network (SCN) and the “Pretty-Good-Privacy” (PGP) trust network. Our investigation shows that due to the existence of community structures in real social networks, small-degree individuals tend to follow their local hubs’ behavior and would adopt their strategies in the long run. Hence, the community structure promotes the emergence of persistence behavior. This provides a clue to understanding the evolution of cooperation in social systems.