The Influence of Social Comparisons on Cooperation and Fairness

理解人类合作的决定因素是社会科学的核心问题。近年来，大量的文献已经发展和确定了有条件的合作，即，如果其他人（被期望）这样做，愿意合作，以及一个基本的驱动力。这一概念植根于社会心理学（Kelley & Stahelski，1970），激发了许多社会比较的经济理论（参见Fehr &施密特，2006）。但是，人们与谁相比呢？到目前为止，经济学文献主要集中在相互作用的合作伙伴，即积极的球员在基本的博弈论模型的比较。然而，我们的大多数真实的世界互动都嵌入在更广泛的社会背景中。最近的研究表明，与不活跃的旁观者进行比较的过程可能对个人的合作意愿起着至关重要的作用（恩格尔和罗肯巴赫，2011）。此外，Böhm和Rockenbach（2013）最近的一篇论文表明，仅仅将合作率与结构独立的群体进行比较就可以促进（群体内）合作。这些研究提供了强有力的证据，表明我们应该扩大我们的关注范围，超越直接互动伙伴的界限。但是，如果比较不限于互动伙伴，比较标准的选择成为一个信息搜索和选择问题。该研究整合了社会比较的心理学研究和合作与公平的经济学研究，扩大了经济情况下人类决策比较过程的视角。具体来说，我们将研究1。在合作困境中互动的主体如何对与外界的社会比较做出反应; 2.外部主体在分配博弈中寻求哪些社会比较信息，回避哪些信息;社会比较信息主体在做出公平判断时会寻求哪些信息。我们的研究旨在为经济情况下社会比较的前因，后果和心理过程提供有价值的见解，并最终为社会比较和经济决策领域的当前经济模型和理论的完善和发展提供基础。

Understanding the determinants of human cooperation is a central question in the social sciences. In recent years, a considerable literature has developed and identified conditional cooperation, i.e., the willingness to cooperate if others (are expected to) do so as well as a fundamental driving force. This concept, rooted in social psychology (Kelley & Stahelski, 1970), spirited many economic theories of social comparisons (see Fehr & Schmidt, 2006, for an overview). But whom do people compare to? Up to now the economic literature has primarily focused on comparisons to interaction partners, i.e. active players in the underlying game theoretic model. However, most of our real world interactions are embedded in a wider social context. Very recently it has been shown that comparison processes to inactive bystanders may play a crucial role for individuals¿ willingness to cooperate (Engel & Rockenbach, 2011). Furthermore, a recent paper by Böhm and Rockenbach (2013) shows that the mere comparison of cooperation rates to a structurally independent group promotes (intragroup) cooperation. These studies provide strong evidence that we should broaden our focus beyond the boundaries of the direct interaction partners. But, if comparisons are not restricted to interaction partners, the selection of comparison standards becomes an information search and selection problem. The proposed research integrates psychological research on social comparisons and economic research on cooperation and fairness, to enlarge the perspective of comparison processes for human decision making in economic situations. Specifically we will investigate 1. How subjects interacting in a cooperation dilemma react to social comparisons to outsiders; 2. Which social comparison information of outsiders subjects in an allocation game seek and which information they avoid; and 3. Which social comparison information subjects seek when making fairness judgments. Our research aims at providing valuable insights into the antecedents, consequences and psychological processes of social comparisons in economic situations and ultimately at providing the basis for a refinement and advancement of current economic models and theories in the domain of social comparisons and economic decision making.