The Evolution of Incentives and Social Structure under Imperfect Information

不完全信息下激励和社会结构的演化

• 批准号: 1137894
• 负责人: Simon Levin
• 金额: $ 73.36万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2015-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1137894&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Evolution; Incentives; Social; Structure; under

Despite the common conception of nature as "red in tooth and claw," almost all organisms, from soil bacteria to primates -including humans-, must cooperate with others to survive and reproduce. How such cooperation persists evolutionarily despite conflicts of interests is a central question in biology. The problem is exacerbated when individuals face uncertainty about factors affecting their payoffs, because this creates incentives for deception that would undermine cooperation. This project will study how incentives for cooperation and the related social structure evolve when individuals face uncertainty and have private information. The PI and his colleagues will use a suite of mathematical tools originally developed in economics, called mechanism design theory. Mechanism design studies how appropriate incentive structures can be set up to prevent self-interested individuals from deceiving each other and undermining the desired outcome. However, classic applications of mechanism design theory, such as the design of auctions and trading schemes, usually presuppose an agent (such as a government) with the power of setting the "rules of the game". In contrast, natural selection acts on individuals that can alter the game only in limited ways by themselves. Hence, the evolved "rules of the game" represent the outcome of natural selection working in a decentralized way through individuals. The aim of this project is to understand how natural selection thus organizes interactions between individuals to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. The project's interdisciplinary approach will not only further our understanding of fundamental evolutionary processes, but also help in understanding how we in human societies can cooperate without relying on a central authority to tackle problems such as global climate change. It will also produce new results in social evolution theory that are sure to capture the public's attention, and will therefore aid in furthering science education and public understanding of science.

尽管大自然的普遍概念是“牙齿和爪子中的红色”，但几乎所有从土壤细菌到灵长类动物的生物都必须与其他人合作以生存和繁殖。尽管利益冲突，这种合作在进化上是如何持续的，这是生物学的核心问题。当个人面对影响其收益的因素的不确定性时，问题会加剧，因为这会引起欺骗的激励措施，从而破坏合作。该项目将研究合作的激励措施以及当个人面对不确定性并拥有私人信息时的相关社会结构如何发展。 PI及其同事将使用最初在经济学中开发的一套数学工具，称为机制设计理论。机理设计研究如何建立适当的激励结构，以防止自私的人相互欺骗并破坏所需的结果。但是，机制设计理论的经典应用，例如拍卖和交易计划的设计，通常以制定“游戏规则”的力量为代理人（例如政府）前提。 相比之下，自然选择对只能以有限方式改变游戏的个体进行。因此，进化的“游戏规则”代表了自然选择以通过个人分散方式工作的自然选择的结果。该项目的目的是了解自然选择如何因此如何组织个人之间的互动以实现互惠互利的结果。 该项目的跨学科方法不仅将进一步了解我们对基本进化过程的理解，而且还有助于理解我们在人类社会中如何在不依靠中央权力来解决全球气候变化等问题的情况下进行合作。它还将在社会进化论中产生新的结果，这些结果一定会吸引公众的注意，因此有助于进一步发展科学教育和公众对科学的理解。