The Influence of Social Comparisons on Cooperation and Fairness

社会比较对合作和公平的影响

• 批准号: 258546765
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Bettina Rockenbach
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Seminar für Experimentelle Wirtschafts- und Verhaltensforschung
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Units
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2013-12-31 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/258546765?language=en
• 关键词: Influence; Social; Comparisons; Cooperation; Fairness

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.

了解人类合作的决定因素是社会科学的核心问题。近年来，大量文献发展并确定了有条件的合作，即如果其他人（预期）这样做的话，合作的意愿以及基本驱动力。这个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 & Schmidt，2006，概述）。但人们与谁相比呢？到目前为止，经济学文献主要集中于与互动伙伴（即基础博弈论模型中的活跃参与者）的比较。然而，我们现实世界中的大多数互动都植根于更广泛的社会背景中。最近的研究表明，与不活跃的旁观者的比较过程可能对个人的合作意愿发挥至关重要的作用（Engel＆Rockenbach，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上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，表明我们应该将我们的关注范围扩大到直接互动伙伴的范围之外。但是，如果比较不限于互动对象，那么比较标准的选择就变成了一个信息搜索和选择的问题。该研究整合了关于社会比较的心理学研究和关于合作与公平的经济学研究，以扩大经济情境中人类决策的比较过程的视角。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局外人的社会比较做出反应； 2、分配博弈中的局外人主体寻求哪些社会比较信息，回避哪些信息； 3.主体在做出公平判断时寻求哪些社会比较信息。我们的研究旨在为经济形势下社会比较的前因、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当前经济模型和理论的完善和发展提供基础。