SBE-RCUK Lead Agency: The Cognitive Foundations of Human Reciprocity

SBE-RCUK 牵头机构：人类互惠的认知基础

• 批准号: ES/R008353/2
• 负责人: Alicia P. Melis
• 金额: $ 46.38万
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FR008353%2F2
• 关键词: SBE; RCUK; Lead; Agency; Cognitive

Humans' ability to reciprocate is one of the major mechanisms enabling cooperation. When individuals take turns cooperating in a reciprocal fashion, they are better off in the long-term than individuals who care only about their own immediate benefit. Theories of cooperation that have been influential across many fields, including biology, psychology and economics, view reciprocity as a central component of human cooperation. Despite extensive theoretical work, however, little is known about the foundational psychological mechanisms that enable reciprocity. What features of the human mind enable us to engage in reciprocity? What are the cognitive abilities that make it possible for humans to cooperate in ways not found in other animals? We hypothesize that the cognitive abilities to plan for the future, to exert patience, and to tolerate a level of risk are fundamental psychological traits for reciprocity-based cooperation. The evolution of these cognitive skills are necessary prerequisites for reciprocity, which can explain the important role that cooperation plays in human societies and the distinctly human capacity to engage in cooperative interactions even in large groups of unrelated individuals. Furthermore, we suggest that a great amount of humans' variability to engage in reciprocal cooperation is due to individual differences in these cognitive skills. Hence, understanding the causes of individual variation in cooperation is a necessary step towards promoting and fostering cooperation between individuals.Based upon theoretical work and initial empirical evidence, we target future planning skills, patience, and risk tolerance as foundational capacities for reciprocity. Methodologically, we will combine three complementary lines of inquiry: One strand of research will assess the evolutionary basis of the human capacity for reciprocity, by studying chimpanzees as one of humans' closest primate relatives. Our hypothesis is that chimpanzees engage in reciprocal behaviour in limited ways because of differences in their ability to plan for the future, patience skills, and risk tolerance. A second strand of research will look at the emergence of reciprocal cooperation in children between 3 and 6 years of age. Evidence suggests that children acquire the capacity for reciprocal cooperation during this age-window, and we will test the hypothesis that this developmental emergence of reciprocity can be explained by changes in planning skills, patience, and changes in risk preferences. A third strand of experiments will examine individual differences among human adults in their tendency to engage in reciprocal cooperation, measuring whether variability in reciprocity can be explained by differences in future planning skills, patience, and risk tolerance. With this multidisciplinary approach, we will have the unique opportunity to identify the critical psychological mechanisms for human reciprocity. An important aspect of this research project is to translate the insights from basic research to develop programs that foster cooperation in society-at-large. In business, practitioners have come to realize the need for more collaborative approaches and are in urgent need of insights and guidelines to understand and promote collaborative working within and between organizations. For this reason, we will closely collaborate with the Institute for Collaborative Working (ICW), the organization behind the International Standard on Collaboration (ISO44001) that serves as the platform for firms to share best practices and benchmark effective collaborative working across different sectors. We will have regular meetings with representatives of the ICW to plan and strategize the use of this research as well as a final retreat where all researchers from the current project, international experts on cooperation research, and collaborators from the ICW will gather to discuss implications of the research findings.

人类的互惠能力是促成合作的主要机制之一。当个体以互惠的方式轮流合作时，他们的长期生活会比那些只关心自己眼前利益的个体更好。在生物学、心理学和经济学等许多领域都有影响力的合作理论认为互惠是人类合作的核心组成部分。然而，尽管有大量的理论研究，人们对互惠的基本心理机制知之甚少。人类思维的哪些特征使我们能够参与互惠？是什么样的认知能力使人类能够以其他动物所没有的方式进行合作？我们假设，规划未来的认知能力，发挥耐心，并容忍一定程度的风险是基于互惠的合作的基本心理特征。这些认知技能的进化是互惠的必要先决条件，这可以解释合作在人类社会中的重要作用，以及人类参与合作互动的独特能力，即使是在大型的不相关个体群体中。此外，我们认为，大量的人类的可变性，从事互惠合作是由于这些认知技能的个体差异。因此，理解合作中个体差异的原因是促进和培养个体之间合作的必要步骤。基于理论工作和初步的经验证据，我们将未来规划技能、耐心和风险承受能力作为互惠的基础能力。从方法论上讲，我们将联合收割机结合三条互补的研究路线：一条研究路线将评估人类互惠能力的进化基础，通过研究黑猩猩作为人类最亲近的灵长类亲属之一。我们的假设是，黑猩猩参与互惠行为的方式是有限的，因为它们在规划未来的能力，耐心技能和风险承受能力方面存在差异。第二项研究将着眼于3至6岁儿童的互惠合作。有证据表明，儿童获得互惠合作的能力，在这个年龄窗口，我们将测试的假设，这种发展出现的互惠可以解释的变化，规划技能，耐心，和风险偏好的变化。第三组实验将考察成年人在互惠合作倾向上的个体差异，衡量互惠的差异是否可以用未来规划技能、耐心和风险承受能力的差异来解释。通过这种多学科的方法，我们将有独特的机会来确定人类互惠的关键心理机制。该研究项目的一个重要方面是将基础研究的见解转化为促进整个社会合作的方案。在企业中，从业者已经意识到需要更多的协作方法，迫切需要见解和指导方针来理解和促进组织内部和组织之间的协作。为此，我们将与协作工作研究所（ICW）密切合作，ICW是国际协作标准（ISO44001）背后的组织，是公司分享最佳实践和衡量不同行业有效协作的平台。我们将与国际妇女理事会的代表定期举行会议，以计划和战略性地利用这项研究，并举行最后的务虚会，目前项目的所有研究人员，国际合作研究专家和国际妇女理事会的合作者将聚集在一起讨论研究结果的影响。

项目成果

Relationship between Delay Discounting and Risk Preference in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Humans

• 发表时间: 2021
• 作者: Stefanie Keupp;Sebastian Grueneisen;Felix Warneken;Elliot A. Ludvig;Alicia P. Melis