The evolution of collective decision-making from childhood to adulthood: markets, networks and institutions

从童年到成年集体决策的演变：市场、网络和机构

• 批准号: 2315770
• 负责人: Isabelle Brocas
• 金额: $ 52.52万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-08-01 至 2026-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2315770&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: evolution; collective; decision; making; childhood

Adults and children often struggle to achieve optimal outcomes in seemingly simple two-person interactions. This pattern arises from uncorrected tendencies and developmental shortcomings, which are heavily influenced by cognitive biases and limitations. Even more intriguing is the finding that adults perform better in larger and seemingly more complex situations with less guidance. Some evidence suggests that behavior in such environments may rely, at least partly, on skills that are less cognitive and more focused on affective abilities like perceiving and interpreting emotions and intentions. Interestingly, several studies on market trading have shown that children of different ages also tend to reach outcomes with favorable properties. This observation suggests the possibility that the skills supporting behavior in groups may develop early or even be innate. This new research explores the developmental trajectory of decision-making and aggregate outcomes within “small societies” such as markets and networks. It also aims to uncover the cognitive and non-cognitive skills that underpin decision-making in these environments. By unraveling the complexities of decision-making within groups, this research will enhance our understanding of human behavior and shed light on why group situations are, paradoxically, more intuitive to humans than two-person interactions. Additionally, it will help identify the skills that guide our decision-making processes, enabling us to reach favorable outcomes. Furthermore, the research will ascertain the extent to which these skills evolve with age. These findings hold the potential to inform policymaking, education, and societal structures, thereby fostering improved collective outcomes while promoting individual growth and development. The study will employ experimental techniques to test the development of behavior from childhood to adulthood across four paradigms while assessing their cognitive and affective skills. To allow for meaningful comparisons across age groups, a methodology will be developed to ensure participants fully understand the structure of the groups in which they will make decisions. Specifically, the research will investigate four paradigms. Firstly, it will examine trade behavior in markets involving commodities and money, aiming to understand the types of exchanges observed at different ages, as well as trading frictions, clearing prices, and final allocations. Subjects will participate in a trading game, in which they can exchange and purchase goods. The experiment will also measure how communication technologies between players facilitate exchange. Secondly, the study will explore how information is aggregated in large groups, where individuals can only observe the choices made by their immediate "neighbors". The setting will capture the exchange of information in social networks. By varying the information structure, the experiment will explore factors that impact the weight people put to specific kinds of news, and the ability (or lack of) to infer general knowledge from local information. Thirdly, the study will analyze children's behavior in social learning environments, where individuals obtain signals, and they must extract information from the actions (not the signals) of their peers. It will study whether children of different ages make rational inferences. Lastly, the project will investigate how children aggregate the ordinal preferences of their peers and compare their choices with established rules such as majoritarianism, Borda, and antiplurality. For each paradigm, the research will also investigate the relationship between outcomes and skills, aiming to measure the influence of cognitive and affective development on decision-making. Additionally, the study will compare outcomes, skills, and their interplay across populations that differ in environmental factors such as economic status or school curricula.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

成人和儿童经常在看似简单的两人互动中努力取得最佳的结果。这种模式源于未矫正的趋势和发展缺点，这些趋势和发展的缺点受认知偏见和局限性的影响。更吸引人的是，成年人在更大，看似更复杂的情况下表现更好，指导较少。一些证据表明，在这种环境中的行为至少部分依赖于认知能力较低的技能，并且更专注于情感能力，例如感知和解释情感和意图。有趣的是，几项关于市场交易的研究表明，不同年龄的孩子也倾向于达到具有良好财产的结果。该观察结果表明，支持小组中的技能可能会尽早发展甚至是先天性。这项新研究探讨了“小社会”（例如市场和网络）内决策和总体成果的发展轨迹。它还旨在揭示在这些环境中决策的认知和非认知技能。通过阐明小组内决策的复杂性，这项研究将增强我们对人类行为的理解，并阐明为什么矛盾的是，与两人的互动相比，矛盾的是，对人类的直觉更直观。此外，它将有助于确定指导我们决策过程的技能，从而使我们能够达到有利的结果。此外，研究将确定这些技能随着年龄的增长的程度。这些发现具有为决策，教育和社会结构提供信息的潜力，从而在促进个人成长和发展的同时促进了改善的集体成果。该研究将采用实验技术来测试从童年到成年的行为发展，同时评估其认知和情感技能。为了允许在各个年龄段之间进行有意义的比较，将开发一种方法，以确保参与者完全了解他们做出决定的群体的结构。具体而言，研究将研究四个范式。首先，它将检查涉及商品和金钱的市场的贸易行为，旨在了解不同年龄段观察到的交易所的类型，以及交易摩擦，清算价格和最终分配。受试者将参加交易游戏，他们可以在其中交换和购买商品。该实验还将衡量玩家之间的通信技术如何促进交流。其次，该研究将探讨如何在大型群体中汇总信息，个人只能观察其直接的“邻居”的选择。该设置将捕获社交网络中的信息交换。通过改变信息结构，实验将探索影响人们对特定新闻的体重的因素，以及从本地信息中推断出一般知识的能力（或缺乏）的能力。第三，这项研究将分析儿童在社会学习环境中的行为，个人获得信号，并且必须从同龄人的行动（不是信号）中提取信息。它将研究不同年龄的孩子是否提供理性信息。最后，该项目将调查儿童如何汇总同龄人的顺序偏好，并将他们的选择与诸如多数主义，博尔达和抗原的既定规则进行比较。对于每个范式，研究还将研究结果与技能之间的关系，旨在衡量认知和情感发展对决策的影响。此外，该研究将比较在经济状况或学校课程等环境因素方面的成果，技能及其相互作用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响来评估NSF的法定任务。