Collaborative Research: Decision-Making on Behalf of Others

在现代社会中，有许多重要的决定是由一个人代表其他人做出的。 首席执行官代表公司的员工做出决定;牧师代表他们的教会;将军代表他们的部队;教师代表他们的学生;帮派头目代表他们的追随者;父母代表他们的家人;公司董事会成员代表股东;律师代表他们的客户;也许最明显的是，当选代表他们所代表的选民。 虽然决策的学生有一个令人印象深刻的理解所作的决定，代表自己的利益，尚未进行分析的确切方式，代表他人作出的决定不同于那些发生在传统的二元背景下。 在这个研究项目中，研究人员采用了一系列的实验来分离，从而确定当他们代表别人做出决定时，不同的决定是以何种方式做出的。 在一个说明性的实验中，一个受试者得到20美元，并被告知以任何方式与第二个玩家分享。 从现有的研究利用一次性独裁者和最后通牒游戏，它是已知的主题通常给近一半的匿名合作伙伴。 但是，当受试者代表他人行事时，这种慷慨会在多大程度上被削弱（或增强），这一点还不得而知。 如果实验的结构被修改，使受试者代表一组五人（包括受试者），并必须决定如何在他/她自己的组和第二组（接收）之间分配100美元（5 x 20美元），其中一组中的所有成员都收到相同的金额，决策可能会有所不同。 识别这两种常见且重要的决策安排之间行为差异的确切性质是本项目的中心目标。该项目的学术价值在于，它为决策的主要理论模型的适用条件提供了一个明确的经验测试。 例如，来自微观经济学的最纯粹形式的理性选择模型假设，决策者总是试图最大化他们的短期有形收益，当人们代表自己行事时，这种期望往往是错误的。 但是，第二个理论，从社会和进化心理学中得出，并在当前的项目中使用，强调人们对他人看待他们的方式的关注，因此导致了这样的期望，有点讽刺的是，决策者将更多地保护他人的资源，而不是他们自己的资源。 因此，这项研究在确定主要决策模型适用的精确条件方面具有相当大的希望。 这项研究通过帮助公民、改革者和决策者自己了解在各种现实生活背景下作用于决策者的心理压力，产生了更广泛和更实际的影响。 假设实验结果如预期，如果短期收益最大化是预期目标，则授权代表成为最有成效的方法。 然而，如果决策者的愿望是分享和参与利他主义的惩罚，那么明智的做法是让人们自己做决定。

A surprising number of the important decisions in modern society are undertaken by one person on behalf of other people. CEOs make decisions on behalf of employees in the firm; pastors on behalf of their congregations; generals on behalf of their troops; teachers on behalf of their students; gang leaders on behalf of their followers; parents on behalf of their family; members of corporate boards on behalf of shareholders; lawyers on behalf of their clients; and perhaps most obviously, elected representatives on behalf of the constituents they represent. Though students of decision-making have an impressive understanding of decisions made by those acting on their own behalf, an analysis has yet to be undertaken of the precise manner in which decisions taken on behalf of others differ from those occurring in a traditional dyadic context. In this research project, the investigators employ a series of experiments to isolate and thereby to ascertain the manner in which decisions are different when they are made on someone else's behalf. In an illustrative experiment, a subject is given $20 and told to divide it with a second player in any fashion. From existing research utilizing single-shot dictator and ultimatum games it is known that subjects typically give nearly half to their anonymous partner. But not known is the extent to which this generosity is curtailed (or enhanced) when subjects are acting on behalf of others. If the structure of the experiment is modified so that a subject acts on behalf of a group of five people (including the subject) and must decide how to allocate $100 (5 x $20) between his/her own group and a second (receiving) group, with all members within a group receiving the same amount, decisions are likely to be different. Identifying the precise nature of the difference in behavior between these two common and important decision arrangements is the central goal of this project. The intellectual merit of the project is that it provides a clear empirical test of the conditions under which leading theoretical models of decision-making apply. For example, the purest form of the rational choice model, drawn from microeconomics, hypothesizes that decision-makers will always attempt to maximize their short-term tangible gains, an expectation that often turns out to be false when people are acting on behalf of themselves. But a second theory, drawn from social and evolutionary psychology and utilized in the current project, emphasizes people's concern for the way others perceive them and therefore leads to the expectation that, somewhat ironically, decision-makers will be more protective of the resources of others than they are of their own. As such, the research holds considerable promise of determining the precise conditions under which leading models of decision-making apply. The research has a broader and more practical impact by helping citizens, reformers, and decision-makers themselves to understand the psychological pressures acting on decision-makers in various real-life contexts. Assuming the results of the experiments are as anticipated, if maximization of short-term gains is the desired goal, giving authority to representatives becomes the most fruitful approach. If, however, the desire is for decision-makers to share and to engage in altruistic punishment, the sensible thing to do is to let people make decisions for themselves.