SBE-RCUK Lead Agency: The Cognitive Foundations of Human Reciprocity

SBE-RCUK 牵头机构：人类互惠的认知基础

• 批准号: ES/R008353/1
• 负责人: Alicia P. Melis
• 金额: $ 54.46万
• 依托单位: University of Warwick
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FR008353%2F1
• 关键词: SBE; RCUK; Lead; Agency; Cognitive

Humans' ability to reciprocate is one of the major mechanisms enabling cooperation. When individuals take turns cooperating in a reciprocal fashion, they are better off in the long-term than individuals who care only about their own immediate benefit. Theories of cooperation that have been influential across many fields, including biology, psychology and economics, view reciprocity as a central component of human cooperation. Despite extensive theoretical work, however, little is known about the foundational psychological mechanisms that enable reciprocity. What features of the human mind enable us to engage in reciprocity? What are the cognitive abilities that make it possible for humans to cooperate in ways not found in other animals? We hypothesize that the cognitive abilities to plan for the future, to exert patience, and to tolerate a level of risk are fundamental psychological traits for reciprocity-based cooperation. The evolution of these cognitive skills are necessary prerequisites for reciprocity, which can explain the important role that cooperation plays in human societies and the distinctly human capacity to engage in cooperative interactions even in large groups of unrelated individuals. Furthermore, we suggest that a great amount of humans' variability to engage in reciprocal cooperation is due to individual differences in these cognitive skills. Hence, understanding the causes of individual variation in cooperation is a necessary step towards promoting and fostering cooperation between individuals.Based upon theoretical work and initial empirical evidence, we target future planning skills, patience, and risk tolerance as foundational capacities for reciprocity. Methodologically, we will combine three complementary lines of inquiry: One strand of research will assess the evolutionary basis of the human capacity for reciprocity, by studying chimpanzees as one of humans' closest primate relatives. Our hypothesis is that chimpanzees engage in reciprocal behaviour in limited ways because of differences in their ability to plan for the future, patience skills, and risk tolerance. A second strand of research will look at the emergence of reciprocal cooperation in children between 3 and 6 years of age. Evidence suggests that children acquire the capacity for reciprocal cooperation during this age-window, and we will test the hypothesis that this developmental emergence of reciprocity can be explained by changes in planning skills, patience, and changes in risk preferences. A third strand of experiments will examine individual differences among human adults in their tendency to engage in reciprocal cooperation, measuring whether variability in reciprocity can be explained by differences in future planning skills, patience, and risk tolerance. With this multidisciplinary approach, we will have the unique opportunity to identify the critical psychological mechanisms for human reciprocity. An important aspect of this research project is to translate the insights from basic research to develop programs that foster cooperation in society-at-large. In business, practitioners have come to realize the need for more collaborative approaches and are in urgent need of insights and guidelines to understand and promote collaborative working within and between organizations. For this reason, we will closely collaborate with the Institute for Collaborative Working (ICW), the organization behind the International Standard on Collaboration (ISO44001) that serves as the platform for firms to share best practices and benchmark effective collaborative working across different sectors. We will have regular meetings with representatives of the ICW to plan and strategize the use of this research as well as a final retreat where all researchers from the current project, international experts on cooperation research, and collaborators from the ICW will gather to discuss implications of the research findings.

人类回报的能力是实现合作的主要机制之一。当个人轮流以相互的方式合作时，与仅关心自己的直接利益的人相比，他们在长期的长期情况下会更好。在包括生物学，心理学和经济学在内的许多领域都具有影响力的合作理论，将互惠视为人类合作的核心组成部分。尽管经过广泛的理论工作，但对于使互惠的基本心理机制知之甚少。人类思想的哪些特征使我们能够参与互惠？哪些认知能力使人类有可能以其他动物没有发现的方式进行合作？我们假设为未来计划，发挥耐心并容忍一定程度的认知能力是基于互惠合作的基本心理特征。这些认知能力的演变是互惠的必要先决条件，这可以解释合作在人类社会中发挥的重要作用，以及即使在大量无关的个体中，也可以参与合作互动的明显能力。此外，我们建议，由于这些认知技能的个体差异，人类参与相互合作的可变性是如此。因此，了解合作中个人差异的原因是促进和促进个人之间合作的必要步骤。基于理论工作和最初的经验证据，我们以未来的计划技能，耐心和风险承受能力为目标，作为互惠的基础能力。从方法上讲，我们将结合三个互补的探究线：一链研究将通过研究黑猩猩作为人类最接近的灵长类动物亲戚之一来评估人类互惠能力的进化基础。我们的假设是，由于他们计划未来的能力，耐心技能和风险承受能力的能力差异，黑猩猩以有限的方式从事互惠行为。第二项研究将考虑3至6岁之间的儿童相互合作的出现。有证据表明，儿童在这个年龄段的窗口中获得了相互合作的能力，我们将检验以下假设：互惠的发展出现可以通过计划技能，耐心和风险偏好变化的变化来解释。第三链实验将检查人类成年人之间的个体差异，他们倾向于进行相互合作，从而衡量互惠的可变性是否可以通过未来的计划技能，耐心和风险承受能力的差异来解释。通过这种多学科的方法，我们将有独特的机会来确定人类互惠的关键心理机制。该研究项目的一个重要方面是将基础研究的见解转化为开发在社会上促进合作的计划。在业务中，从业者已经意识到需要采用更多协作的方法，并且迫切需要洞察力和指南，以了解和促进组织之间和组织之间的协作工作。因此，我们将与协作研究所（ICW）密切合作，该组织是国际协作标准（ISO44001）背后的组织，该组织是公司共享最佳实践和基准有效协作的公司平台。我们将与ICW的代表定期开会，以计划和制定对本研究的使用以及最终务虚会的策略，其中所有来自当前项目的研究人员，国际合作研究专家以及ICW的合作者将聚集在一起讨论研究结果的影响。