Collaborative Research: Understanding Strategic Economic Interactions in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans

几千年来，经济决策一直指导着人类的行为，但人们对人类这种决策的进化和适应性知之甚少。猴子和猿类由于进化上的亲缘关系和相似的认知能力，为许多人类行为提供了很好的模型。该项目考察了一种假设，即非人类灵长类动物和人类共享基本的经济决策策略，这些策略考虑了合作伙伴的身份和合作与背叛的潜在回报，并考察了在潜在的合作情况下，对计算机交互的反应与对面对面交互的反应有何不同。一个普遍的假设是，经济决策依赖于语言技能，因此可能是语言有机体所独有的。然而，经济决策在系统发育上可能比这一假设所暗示的更为普遍，在这种情况下，通过将人类的行为与非人灵长类动物的行为进行比较，可以更好地理解这种行为。这项研究使用了一个著名的经济决策游戏，称为保证，或猎鹿游戏。在与伙伴配对后，个体必须在合作结果（对双方都有利）和非合作结果（伙伴得不到任何奖励，而玩家得到一些奖励）之间做出选择。如果他们合作，双方都会受益；然而，如果一个玩家担心同伴可能不合作，那么这个玩家最好选择“背叛”，或者选择不合作的选项。在某些情况下，参与者将体验到与合作伙伴面对面的互动，而在其他情况下？社会距离吗?将通过让参与者玩电脑版本的游戏来介绍。许多合作互动并没有给所有参与者平等的报酬，这可能会对随后的合作和背叛产生重大影响。因此，本研究中的一些条件将决定当一个参与者因合作而获得更多奖励（导致其伙伴的不平等回报和背叛动机）或因背叛而获得更多奖励（导致背叛动机）时，对经济博弈的反应会发生怎样的变化。人类和非人类受试者将作为所有治疗的受试者，并对他们的行为进行比较。这些数据将阐明个人如何做出合作决策，以及这些决策如何受到面对面互动和不平等的影响。了解非人灵长类动物和人类之间的这些相互作用，将有助于更恰当地将非人行为置于人类行为的背景中，并了解人类经济决策产生的根源。

Economic decision making has guided human behavior for thousands of years, but little is known about the evolution and adaptiveness of such decision making in humans. Monkeys and apes provide a good model for many human behaviors due to their close evolutionary relatedness and similar cognitive abilities. This project examines the hypothesis that nonhuman primates and humans share basic economic decision making strategies that take into account partner identity and potential rewards for cooperation and defection, as well as examining how responses to computerized interactions differ from responses to face-to-face interactions in potentially cooperative situations. A common assumption is that economic decisions rely on verbal skills, and thus are perhaps unique to verbal organisms. However, economic decision making may be more phylogentically widespread than this assumption suggests in which case such behavior may be better understood by comparing the behavior of humans with the behavior of nonhuman primate species. This study uses a well known economic decision making game called the Assurance, or Stag Hunt game. After being paired with a partner, individuals must choose between a cooperative outcome which is beneficial to both players and a non-cooperative outcome in which the partner does not receive any reward and the player receives some reward. Both individuals are better off if they cooperate; however, if a player is concerned that the partner may not cooperate, then that player is better off 'defecting', or choosing the non-cooperative option. In some situations, participants will experience face-to-face interactions with the partner, whereas in other situations the notion of ?social distance? will be introduced by having participants play computerized versions of the game. Many cooperative interactions do not pay all participants equally, and this may have a major impact on subsequent cooperation and defection. Thus, some conditions in this study will determine how responses to economic games are altered when one player receives either more rewards for cooperating (leading to unequal payoff and motivation for their partner to defect) or more rewards for defecting (leading to motivation to defect). Human and nonhuman subjects will serve as subjects in all treatments and their behavior will be compared. These data will clarify how individuals make cooperative decisions, and how such decisions are affected by face-to-face interaction and inequity. Understanding these interactions in both nonhuman primate and humans will help to more properly place nonhuman behavior in context with human behavior and to understand the roots from which human economic decision making emerged.