ABSTRACT

Cooperation is a fundamental form of social interaction, and turn-taking reciprocity one of its most familiar manifestations. The Centipede game provides a formal model of such alternating reciprocal cooperation, but a backward induction (BI) argument appears to prove logically that instrumentally rational players would never cooperate in this way. A systematic review of experimental research reveals that human decision makers cooperate frequently in this game, except under certain extreme conditions. Several game, situational, and individual difference variables have been investigated for their influence on cooperation. The most influential are aspects of the payoff function (especially the social gain from cooperation and the risk associated with a cooperative move), the number of players, repetitions of the game, group vs. individual decisions, and players’ social value orientations (SVOs). Our review of experimental evidence suggests that other-regarding preferences, including prosocial behavioural dispositions and collective rationality, provide the most powerful explanation for cooperation.

摘要

合作是社会互动的基本形式，而互惠互利是其最常见的表现之一。game游戏提供了这种交替互惠合作的正式模型，但是后向归纳（BI）的论点似乎从逻辑上证明了工具理性玩家永远不会以这种方式合作。对实验研究的系统评价表明，除了某些极端条件外，人类决策者在此游戏中经常合作。研究了几个游戏，情境和个体差异变量对合作的影响。最有影响力的是回报功能的各个方面（尤其是合作带来的社会收益以及与合作举动相关的风险），玩家数量，游戏重复性，团体与个人决策，以及玩家的社会价值取向（SVO）。我们对实验证据的审查表明，其他方面的偏好，包括亲社会行为倾向和集体理性，为合作提供了最有力的解释。