Non-Binding Suggestions, Self-Enforcing Norms and the Determinants of Cooperation in Repeated Games

面对机会主义的激励，往往很难实现共同利益。反复互动可以缓解这一困难：未来互动中的奖惩可能会克服短视的考虑。因此，合作成为一种可能性，但不是必须的。该项目实验性地调查了这种合作规范的自我可持续性，并解决了如何使更好的规范成为焦点的问题。社会通常希望领导人(如首席执行官、政界人士和学校校长)发表声明，希望这种“温和的推动”能影响机构文化和规范。这个项目调查是否可行，通过建议的力量，在重复的关系和社区的背景下实现和维持预期的结果。它将阐明领导层将行为转变为理想结果的能力的决定因素；调查哪些建议行为最容易得到坚持，哪些建议几乎没有希望出现；检查建议是否具有持久的效果；以及考虑用道德语言表达的建议是否比用中性语言表达的建议更有效。社交困境是普遍存在的，但在重复互动的背景下理论上是可以解决的。然而，理论只是揭示了一系列可能的结果是扩大的。它没有阐明如何实现平衡，实现预期的社会结果。最近关于重复游戏的实验文献考虑的是，在过滤掉短暂行为后，哪些规范会在实验室自发结晶。然而，在实验室中出现的平衡可能不会接近在更丰富的环境中出现的平衡，在那里历史背景、策略的共同意义和游戏前的交流发挥着作用。因此，在评估合作的限度时，目前的实验可能过于苛刻：没有看到合作自发地出现，可能不能反映出在现实生活问题上合作的全部潜力。实验室环境无法重现平衡可能成为焦点的多种方式。这项研究采用了一种更温和的方法，使用非约束性建议来测试不同策略的自我强制性质，类似于领导者的声明。这不需要目睹策略的自我出现，也不需要引入违背实验室设置目的的不受控制的元素。未能自愿遵循一些合作均衡策略的非约束性建议，就是它不太可能自发结晶并在现实生活中持续存在的证据。方法论包括改变持续概率，作为对第三方(在这种情况下，是实验者)所做陈述产生的需求影响的自然处理-控制。这项研究将调查许多问题，包括提出非约束性建议(如严厉触发或针锋相对的策略)时的效率是否比让公约自发出现时更高；以及非约束性建议如何与之前研究的合作决定因素(例如，风险主导、风险厌恶和利他主义的作用)相互作用。除了标准的重复游戏，这个项目还将探索社区执行的既定理论概念的经验有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

It is often difficult to achieve the common good in the face of opportunistic incentives. Repeated interaction can alleviate this difficulty: rewards and punishments in future interactions can possibly overcome shortsighted considerations. Cooperation then becomes a possibility, but not a necessity. The project experimentally investigates the self-sustainability of such cooperative norms, and addresses the question of how to make better norms focal. Society often expects leaders (such as CEOs, politicians, and school principals) to make pronouncements in the hope that such 'soft nudges' impact institutional culture and norms. This project investigates whether it is feasible, through the power of suggestion, to effect and sustain desired outcomes in the context of repeated relationships and communities. It will shed light on the determinants of leadership’s ability to shift behavior towards desirable outcomes; investigate which suggested behaviors yield the greatest adherence, and which have little hope of emerging; examine whether suggestions have persistent effects; and consider whether suggestions couched in moral language are more effective than those phrased in neutral language.The social dilemma is pervasive but theoretically solvable in the context of repeated interactions. Yet theory only reveals that the set of possible outcomes expands. It does not shed light on how to bring about an equilibrium achieving the desired societal outcomes. The recent experimental literature on repeated games considers what norms will spontaneously crystallize in the lab, after filtering out transitory behavior. However, the equilibrium that arises in the lab may not come close to those arising in richer settings, where historical context, strategies' shared meaning, and pre-play communication play a role. As such, current experiments may be overly harsh when it comes to assessing the limits of cooperation: not seeing cooperation spontaneously emerge may not reflect the full potential for cooperation in real-life problems. A laboratory environment cannot recreate the many ways in which an equilibrium might become focal. This study takes the more modest approach of testing the self-enforcing nature of different strategies using non-binding suggestions, akin to the pronouncements made by leaders. This does not require having to witness the self-emergence of strategies, nor does it require introducing uncontrolled elements that defy the purposes of a lab setting. Failing to voluntarily follow a non-binding suggestion of some cooperative equilibrium strategies is evidence that it is unlikely to spontaneously crystallize and persist in real life. The methodology involves varying the continuation probability, as a natural treatment-control for demand effects arising from statements made by third parties (in this case, the experimenter). This study will investigate many questions, including whether efficiency is higher when making a non-binding suggestion such as grim-trigger or tit-for-tat strategies, as opposed to when letting a convention emerge spontaneously; and how non-binding suggestions interact with previously studied determinants of cooperation (e.g., the role of risk dominance, risk aversion and altruism). In addition to standard repeated games, this project will also explore the empirical validity of established theoretical notions of community enforcement.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.