Cooperation, Altruism, and Self-control

非技术摘要：合作、利他主义和自我控制P.I.大卫·W·斯蒂芬斯IBN-9507668合作是人类和动物社会行为的关键组成部分。研究动物行为的科学家借鉴了经济博弈论的思想，研究动物合作的进化和维持。博弈学家研究的最简单的游戏类别是“两人2乘2的游戏”，两个参与者中的每个人都必须选择两个动作中的一个。这项研究使用2×2的游戏作为实验和理论工具，以了解动物合作的经济和进化基础。通过将这项研究限制在2乘2的游戏中，研究人员可以简化和分类可能的“合作”情况的范围。合作可能是“自私的”，这对双方都是短期内最好的行为，也可能是“利他主义”，这是一种牺牲短期利益的良好的长期行为。利他主义被认为是行为进化研究中的一个中心问题，因为自然选择的过程被认为是根本上的竞争。实验研究表明，动物很少无私地合作。解释这一事实的一个假设是，动物有强烈的、有充分证据的对直接回报的偏好。用心理学术语来说，他们往往不能表现出必要的“自制力”，以等待一个好的、但延迟的奖励。这项研究由一系列实验组成，在这些实验中，研究人员将操纵明确定义的行动的成本和收益。一项实验将比较三种鸟类的合作能力，松鸦是乌鸦群体中高度社会性的成员，蓝鸦是乌鸦群体中的非社会性成员，而欧洲八哥是一种没有血缘关系的群居鸟类。在一项平行的研究中，研究人员将测量每个物种对中间奖励的偏好的强度。然后，研究人员将询问这些物种在合作倾向上是否有所不同，以及这些差异是否与他们对即刻的测量偏好有关。第二个实验将测试利他主义合作数学模型的基本主张。数学模型师认为，重复2乘2的游戏和“互惠合作”的策略相结合，可以使利他主义合作成为一种良好的短期行动。第三个实验将验证研究人员的假设，即强烈的即时性偏好解释了观察到的动物在实验室情况下未能无私合作的原因。

Non-technical Summary: Cooperation, Altruism and Self-Control P.I. David W. Stephens IBN- 9507668 Cooperation is a key component of human and animal social behavior. Scientists who study animal behavior have borrowed ideas from economic game theory to study the evolution and maintenance of animal cooperation. The simplest category of games studied by game theorists is "Two-player, 2-by-2 games" in which each of two participants must choose one of two actions. This study uses 2-by-2 games as an experimental and theoretical tool to understand the economic and evolutionary underpinnings of animal cooperation. By restricting this study to 2-by-2 games, the investigator can simplify and categorize the range of possible "cooperative" situations. Cooperation may be either "selfish," the best action in the short-term for both participants, or "altruistic," a good long-term action that sacrifices short-terms gains. Altruism is considered a central problem in evolutionary studies of behavior, because the process of natural selection is thought to be fundamentally competitive. Experimental studies suggest that animals seldom cooperate altruistically. One hypothesis explaining this fact is that animals have strong and well- documented preferences for immediate reward. In psychological jargon, they often fail to show the required "self-control" to wait for a good but delayed reward. This study is composed a series of experiments in which the investigator will manipulate the costs and benefits of well- defined actions. One experiment will compare the cooperative abilities of three specis of bird, the pinon jay, a highly social member of the crow group, the bluejay, a non-social member of the crow group ,and the european starling, an unrelated gregarious bird. In a parallel study the investigator will measure the strength of each species' preferences for imediate reward. The investigator will then ask whether the species differ in their tendencies to cooperation, and whether these differences correlate with their measured preferences for immediacy. A second experiment will test a basic claim of mathematical models of altruistic cooperaion. Mathematical modelers have argued that the combination of repetition of a 2-by-2 game, and a strategy of "reciprocal cooperation" can make altruistic cooperation a good short-term action. A third experiment will test the investigator's hypothesis that strong preferences for immediacy explain the observed failure of animals to cooperate altruistically in laboratory situations.