Egalitarian motives in humans
Egalitarian motives in humans
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DOI：
10.1038/nature05651
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发表时间：
2007-04-12
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Smirnov, Oleg
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dawes, Christopher T.;Fowler, James H.;Smirnov, Oleg
实验室游戏的参与者往往愿意以自己为代价改变他人的收入，这种行为具有促进合作的效果(1-3)。这一行动的动机尚不清楚：旨在促进合作的惩罚和奖励不能与试图实现平等的努力区分开来(4)。为了理解昂贵的索取和昂贵的给予，我们创建了一个实验游戏，将平等主义动机隔离开来。结果表明，即使没有合作行为需要加强，受试者也会以个人为代价减少和增加他人的收入。此外，收入变动的规模和频率受到不平等的强烈影响。随着不平等的加剧，对高收入者的情绪变得越来越负面，那些表达这种情绪的人花更多的钱来减少收入高于平均水平的人的收入，增加收入低于平均水平的人的收入。结果表明，平等主义动机影响收入改变行为，因此可能是导致强互惠(5)和人类合作进化的一个重要因素。
Participants in laboratory games are often willing to alter others' incomes at a cost to themselves, and this behaviour has the effect of promoting cooperation(1-3). What motivates this action is unclear: punishment and reward aimed at promoting cooperation cannot be distinguished from attempts to produce equality(4). To understand costly taking and costly giving, we create an experimental game that isolates egalitarian motives. The results show that subjects reduce and augment others' incomes, at a personal cost, even when there is no cooperative behaviour to be reinforced. Furthermore, the size and frequency of income alterations are strongly influenced by inequality. Emotions towards top earners become increasingly negative as inequality increases, and those who express these emotions spend more to reduce above-average earners' incomes and to increase below-average earners' incomes. The results suggest that egalitarian motives affect income-altering behaviours, and may therefore be an important factor underlying the evolution of strong reciprocity(5) and, hence, cooperation in humans.