How agreements are formed and, potentially, break down into cycles of punishment and retribution: the interaction between emotion and reasoning

当人们表现得不合作时，惩罚通常被视为促进未来合作的一种方式。然而，在被不合作对待的人的惩罚和被惩罚的人的报复之间存在潜在的报复循环。这些循环可能是相互破坏的，导致长期的不和和冲突。驱动这种循环的一个强大因素表现在情绪上，尤其是愤怒。愤怒可以激励人们进行惩罚，而这对双方来说都是代价高昂的——根据传统的理性选择模型，这可能从根本上是非理性的。但是，尽管如此，愤怒仍然具有理性功能——没有它，一个纯粹前瞻性的理性行为者可能不会可信地威胁要惩罚；因此，另一方可能不合作而不受惩罚。本项目应用理性互动的新理论，虚拟讨价还价，来理解愤怒和惩罚。根据虚拟讨价还价，人们会形成关于“适当”行为的隐性协议；而且，如果行为不合作，这些协议将包含对惩罚的隐性预期。愤怒等“道德”情绪起到了“监督”协议的作用——这样双方都知道可能会发生惩罚，即使惩罚对双方都是毁灭性的——因此可能会加强合作。根据这一观点，道德情绪和随后的惩罚，关键取决于对隐性协议的共同认识。之前大多数关于惩罚的研究都使用了公益游戏。为了将情感和惩罚结合起来，一些研究人员借鉴了之前的研究，创造了一个社会困境游戏，它类似于信任游戏，但包含了一个动态的惩罚设置。基于前人在这方面的研究，我们将采用实验室实验的方法来探讨这些问题。在理论贡献方面，本项目将虚拟议价理论扩展到惩罚，并阐明情绪在惩罚过程中的作用。就其影响而言，该项目提供了对社会背景下惩罚和报复行为的更好理解，以及情绪（例如愤怒）在讨价还价和日常生活中的作用。此外，它对我们在没有强有力的执法的道德生活中重新考虑人们在惩罚背景下的行为也有广泛的贡献。此外，这给我们一些启示，将虚拟议价扩展到与执法部门（如第三方）的惩罚，以帮助我们理解法律对罪犯的惩罚效率。综上所述，本项目对新型虚拟议价下的心理学、经济学、伦理学等方面的文献，以及对个人、政策或立法者的启示都有贡献。

Punishment is often regarded as a way to promote future cooperation, when people behave uncooperatively. However, there is a potential retaliation cycle between punishment by people who are treated uncooperatively and retaliation by those who are punished. These cycles can be mutually destructive, leading to long-running feuds and conflicts. One powerful factor is driving such cycles appears to emotions, especially anger. Anger can motivate people to engage in punishment which will be costly to be both parties---which may appear fundamentally irrational, according to conventional rational choice models. But anger has, nonetheless, a rational function---without it, a purely forward-looking rational agent may not credibly threaten to punish; and hence the other may be uncooperative with impunity. The present project applies a new theory of rational interaction, virtual bargaining, to understand anger and punishment. According to virtual bargaining, people form implicit agreements about 'appropriate' behaviour; and these agreements will include implicit expectations of punishment, if behaviour is uncooperative. "Moral" emotions such as anger function to "police" agreements---so that both parties know that punishment may occur, even when carrying that punishment is mutually destructive---and hence potentially enhancing cooperation. According to this viewpoint, moral emotions, and subsequent punishment, depend crucially on common knowledge of the implicit agreement. Most previous studies of punishment have used public good games. To combine emotion and punishment, some researchers drew on previous studies to create a social dilemma game, which is similar to the trust game but includes a dynamic punishment setting. Based on previous studies in this area, we will use the lab experimental method to explore these questions. In terms of theoretical contributions, this project will extend the virtual bargaining theory to punishment and will elucidate the function of emotions in the punishment process. With regard to its implications, this project provides a better understanding of punishment and retaliation behaviour in the social context, and of the function of emotion (e.g., anger) in bargaining and in daily life. Furthermore, it also has a broad contribution for us to reconsider people's behaviour in punishment context of our moral life without strong law enforcement. Moreover, this gives us some inspirations on extending virtual bargaining to punishment with law enforcement (e.g., third party) to help us understand the efficiency of punishment laws making for criminals. In summary, this project contributes to the literature of psychology, economics, ethics etc. under the novel virtual bargaining, and to the implication on individuals and on policy or lawmakers.