Doctoral Dissertation Research: Focal Social Actors and Tacit Coordination

在这个项目中，主要研究人员将探讨社会焦点对小团体中默契协调的潜在影响。行动协调是社会和组织生活中一个普遍而重要的过程。成功的协调导致有效的互动和团队合作，而协调失败可能对社会关系和经济结果产生不利影响。对隐性协调的研究主要集中在结构焦点上，或通过情境本身或个人可获得的特定行为选择提出的协调问题的解决方案。这个项目将扩展这种思维，包括社会焦点，它来自于社会行动者自身的差异性独特性、显著性或突出性。四项实验研究将探讨：1)焦点社会行为者的存在如何影响小团体中的协调成功；2)参与者和选择对应产生这种效果的不同方式；3)成为焦点行为者是否普遍有益。预期焦点社会行动者的存在将通过提出一种策略，使个人更有可能选择与社会行动者有关或符合社会行动者的行为选择，从而改善协调。为了解决这些问题，我们将通过关于社会特征的错误反馈来创建焦点角色。所有的研究将采用三人一组的方式。反馈将被操纵，这样群体要么在社会特征上是同质的，要么由一个独特的个体组成，这个个体在社会特征上与群体中的其他两个个体不同。就更广泛的影响而言，这项研究将有助于我们理解相互依存的实体如何协调它们的行动，这是一个社会心理学家、经济学家和外行都感兴趣的问题。这样的理解对常见的社会互动，如对话、协作工作和交通协商具有深远的影响。通过将社会因素添加到博弈论的正式概念中，这项工作将更多地阐明隐性协调如何起作用的问题。它将建立在现有研究的基础上，扩展社会焦点的概念，并试图解释一些看似不同的现象，如地位、时间和外部选择对协调游戏行为的影响。越来越多的证据表明，对协调行为感兴趣的人不仅要考虑与问题集或结构环境有关的因素，而且还要考虑面临协调问题的社会行动者的特征，这对他们大有好处。

In this project the Principal Investigators will explore the potential impact of social focal points on tacit coordination in small groups. Coordination of actions is a common and important process in social and organizational life. Successful coordination leads to efficient interactions and teamwork, while failures in coordination can have detrimental impacts on both social relationships as well as economic outcomes. Research on tacit coordination has focused largely on structural focal points, or solutions to a coordination problem which are suggested through the situation itself or the particular behavioral options available to individuals. This project will extend such thinking to include social focal points, which come from differential uniqueness, conspicuousness, or prominence among the social actors themselves. Four experimental studies will address: 1) how the presence of a focal social actor impacts coordination success in small groups, 2) different ways in which players and options can correspond to yield this effect, and 3) whether or not being a focal actor is universally beneficial. It is expected that the presence of a focal social actor will improve coordination by suggesting a strategy which sees individuals more likely to select behavioral options which are related to or correspond with the social actor. To address these questions we will create focal actors through false feedback regarding social traits. All studies will use groups of three participants. Feedback will be manipulated such that groups are either homogenous on a social trait or comprised of one unique individual who differs on a social trait from two others in the group.In terms of broader impacts this research will contribute to our understanding of how interdependent entities coordinate their actions, a question which has interested social psychologists, economists, and laypersons alike. Such an understanding has far reaching implications for common social interactions such as conversation, collaborative work, and traffic negotiation. By adding social factors to the formal concepts of game theory, this work will shed more light on the question of how tacit coordination works. It will build on existing research to extend the concept of social focal points and it will attempt to explain several seemingly disparate phenomena, such as the impact of status, timing, and outside options on behavior in coordination games. It will add to the growing body of evidence that those interested in coordinated behavior would be well served to consider not just factors regarding the problem set or structural environment, but also features of the social actors facing the coordination problem.