The Role of Authority and Communication in Cooperation

这个项目将使用博弈论的工具来提供对大团体中合作的更好的理解。这些工具被其他人用来理解小团体中的合作。然而，这项工作的洞察力并没有提供更大群体中发生的事情的太多洞察力。该项目分为两部分。第一部分涉及权威--它是什么，一个人如何获得它，维护它，并使用它。其目的是提供对权威的理解，以个人协调其他玩家行动的能力为中心。一个好的权威模式应该有几个特点。首先，当一群人协调他们的行为以回应个人的公告时，个人就有了权威。其次，拥有权威的个人维护权威和利用其权威的动机之间存在紧张关系。第三，太多的灵活性或不可预测性可能会摧毁权威。第四，权威不一定来自某种特殊的能力或天赋。第五，权威不是由人们简单地协调“权威”人物所确定的选择而产生的。主要研究人员将构建具有这些功能的模型，并使用它们来分析权威。项目的第二部分着眼于大型团队成员之间的沟通角色。之前关于团队如何随着时间的推移进行合作的研究已经将惩罚作为一个核心要素。他们的想法是，人们合作是因为他们知道自己会因为不合作而受到该组织的惩罚。然而，在一个大的小组中，不太可能所有的小组成员都立即知道其他人选择了不合作。只有在小组成员交流的情况下，才有可能进行惩罚。然而，仅仅是交流的可能性并不能确保合作；人们必须有动力说出关于他人的真相，合作才能得到执行。该项目的这一部分将再次使用博弈论来分析大型群体何时以及如何利用沟通来鼓励合作。这项研究将提供更好的理解，以了解合作在大型社会群体中如何起作用和不起作用。经济学和其他社会科学的一个核心问题是，为什么一些国家或集团的表现不如其他国家或集团。绩效的差异似乎不能用可用资源的差异来充分解释，这表明社会组织的差异可能是重要的。重点放在社会组织、权威和沟通的特定方面，作为一个社会内可能的合作水平的重要决定因素。这项工作将通过提供将社会结构与社会绩效联系起来的模型，为更多旨在了解社会差异的应用工作奠定基础。

This project will use the tools of game theory to provide an improved understanding of cooperation in large groups. These tools have been used by others to understand cooperation in small groups. However, the insights from this work do not provide much insight into what happens in larger groups.The project has two parts. The first part addresses authority - whatit is, how a person might acquire it, maintain it and use it. The aim is to provide an understanding of authority that centers on an individual's ability to coordinate other players' actions. A good model of authority should have several features. First, an individual has authority when a group of people coordinate their behavior in response to announcements by that individual. Second, there is a tension between the incentives of the individual with authority to maintain that authority and to take advantage of his authority. Third, too much flexibility or unpredictability can destroy authority. Fourth, authority need not necessarily come from some special ability or talent. Fifth, authority does not arise from people simply coordinating on a choice identified by the "authority" figure. The principal investigators will build models with these features and use them to analyze authority.The second part of the project looks at the role of communication between the members of large groups. Previous work on how groups cooperate over time has included punishment as a central ingredient. The idea is that people cooperate because they know that they will be punished by the group for non-cooperation. However, in a large group, it is not likely that all group members will immediately know that someone else has chosen non-cooperation. Punishment is only possible if members of the group communicate. However, the mere possibility of communication won't ensure cooperation; people have to have an incentive to tell the truth about others for cooperation to be enforced. This part of the project will again use game theory to analyze when and how large groups can use communication to encourage cooperation.This research will provide a better understanding of how cooperation does and does not work in large social groups. A central question in economics, and other social sciences, is why some countries or groups do less well than others. The variation in performance does not appear to be adequately explained by differences in available resources, suggesting that differences in social organization are likely to be important. The focus is on particular aspects of social organization, authority and communication, as important determinants of the level of cooperation possible within a society. The work will provide a foundation for more applied work aimed at understanding differences among societies by providing models linking social structure to social performance.