Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS - The Predictive Power of Beliefs: Testing a Norm-Based Utility Function

本研究的目的是测试Cristina Bicchieri博士提出的规范的可操作性，该规范将这一概念嵌入决策理论的理性行为者模型中。在一系列的两项研究中，研究人员将测试社会困境文献中经常被引用的两种效应（社会线索的影响和群体成员的影响）是否可以通过它们对参与者对现有社会规范的信念的影响来解释，Bicchieri博士定义了现有社会规范，并使用她开发的程序进行测量。在第三项研究中，研究人员将测试Bicchieri博士基于规范的效用函数在社会困境任务中预测合作行为的能力。如果成功，这将支持将规范嵌入理性选择模型的有效性（就像行为经济学家对其他“社会偏好”所做的那样）。最后，第四项研究将检验Bicchieri博士的说法，即解决协调问题（个人和社会利益相吻合）的规范与解决社会困境（个人和社会利益相左）的规范是通过不同的机制维持的。特别是，我们将观察第三方的奖励、惩罚和补偿行为是否作为达到社会最优结果所需的规范类型的函数而有所不同。有符合我们预测的证据支持比基耶里博士吗？S将规范分为两种类型，并提出了除信念启发之外的另一种检测规范存在的方法。环境的规范影响人们对通常做什么和通常批准或不批准的期望。这些期望随后会影响一个人的行为，因为遵守规范的行为会得到非正式的奖励，而违反规范的行为会受到惩罚（从八卦开始，被排斥，然后被排斥）。从政策的角度来看，通过引入正式规则来改善社会福利的努力将受益于对目前管理一个群体行为的非正式规则的审查。在某种程度上，现有的非正式规则使正式规则合法化，执行新的正式规则的成本将会降低，反之亦然。然而，规范的概念仍然是不精确的，现实世界的应用仍然是不可行的，没有一个可操作的定义和它们对行为影响的模型。

The purpose of the present work is to test an operationalization of norms proposed by Dr. Cristina Bicchieri, which embeds this concept into the rational actor model from decision theory. In a series of two studies, the researchers will test whether two often-cited effects in the social dilemma literature (the influence of social cues and group membership) can be accounted for by their impact on participants' beliefs about the existing social norm, as defined by Dr. Bicchieri and measured using procedures she developed. In a third study, the researchers will test the ability of Dr. Bicchieri's norm-based utility function to predict cooperation behavior across social dilemma tasks. If successful, this would support the usefulness of embedding norms into the rational choice model (as behavioral economists have been doing with other "social preferences"). Lastly, a fourth study will test Dr. Bicchieri's claim that the norms that solve coordination problems (where self and social interests dovetail) are sustained via a different mechanism than those that solve social dilemmas (where self and social interests diverge). In particular, we will observe whether third-party reward, punishment, and compensation behavior differs as a function of the type of norm necessary to reach the socially optimal outcome. Evidence in line with our predictions would support Dr. Bicchieri?s dichotomy of norms into two types and present another method for detecting the existence of norms other than belief elicitation. The norms of an environment influence people's expectations about what is commonly done and what is commonly approved or disapproved. These expectations can subsequently influence a person's actions as norm-abiding behavior is informally rewarded and violations are punished (starting with gossip, ostracism, and then exclusion). From a policy perspective, efforts aimed at improving the welfare of society by introducing formal rules will benefit from an examination of the current informal rules governing a group's actions. To the extent that the existing informal rules legitimize the formal ones, the cost of enforcing the new formal rules will be lower and vice versa. However, the concept of norms remains imprecise, and real-world applications remain infeasible, without an operational definition and a model of their impact on behavior.