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

面对机会主义的激励措施，往往难以实现共同利益。重复的互动可以缓解这种困难：在未来的互动中，奖励和惩罚可能会克服短视的考虑。这样，合作就成为一种可能，而不是一种必要。该项目实验性地研究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。社会通常期望领导者（如首席执行官、政治家和学校校长）发表声明，希望这种“软推动”会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，影响和维持预期的结果。它将揭示领导能力的决定因素，以改变行为向理想的结果;调查哪些建议的行为产生最大的坚持，并没有希望出现;检查建议是否有持久的影响;并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。社会困境是普遍存在的，但在理论上是可以解决的，反复的互动。然而，理论只揭示了可能结果的集合扩大了。它没有阐明如何实现平衡，实现预期的社会成果。最近关于重复游戏的实验文献考虑了在过滤掉短暂行为之后，什么样的规范会在实验室中自发地结晶。然而，在实验室中出现的均衡可能不会接近在更丰富的环境中出现的均衡，在那里历史背景，策略的共同意义和游戏前的沟通发挥了作用。因此，当前的实验在评估合作的局限性时可能过于苛刻：没有看到合作自发出现可能无法反映现实生活问题中合作的全部潜力。实验室环境无法重现平衡可能成为焦点的许多方式。这项研究采取了更温和的方法，使用非约束性的建议来测试不同策略的自我执行性质，类似于领导者所做的声明。这不需要见证策略的自我涌现，也不需要引入违背实验室设置目的的不受控制的元素。不自愿地遵循一些合作均衡策略的非约束性建议是证据，它不太可能自发地结晶和坚持在真实的生活。该方法涉及到不同的延续概率，作为一个自然的治疗控制需求所产生的第三方（在这种情况下，实验者）的声明的影响。这项研究将调查许多问题，包括效率是否更高时，提出一个非约束性的建议，如grim-trigger或达特的战略，而不是让一个公约自发出现;以及如何非约束性的建议与以前研究的合作决定因素（例如，风险支配、风险规避和利他主义的作用）。除了标准的重复游戏外，该项目还将探索社区执法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价值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.