Conditional cooperation and confusion in public-goods experiments

被引:98
作者
Burton-Chellew, Maxwell N. [1 ,2 ,3 ]
El Mouden, Claire [1 ,3 ]
West, Stuart A. [1 ,2 ]
机构
[1] Univ Oxford, Dept Zool, Oxford OX1 3PS, England
[2] Univ Oxford Magdalen Coll, Calleva Res Ctr Evolut & Human Sci, Oxford OX1 4AU, England
[3] Univ Oxford Nuffield Coll, Sociol Grp, Oxford OX1 1NF, England
基金
欧洲研究理事会;
关键词
altruism; strategy method; inequity aversion; reciprocity; social preferences; NEURAL BASIS; SOCIAL PREFERENCES; COLLECTIVE ACTION; DECISION-MAKING; ECONOMIC MAN; EVOLUTION; COMPETITION; PUNISHMENT; BEHAVIOR; KINDNESS;
D O I
10.1073/pnas.1509740113
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Economic experiments are often used to study if humans altruistically value the welfare of others. A canonical result from public-good games is that humans vary in how they value the welfare of others, dividing into fair-minded conditional cooperators, who match the cooperation of others, and selfish noncooperators. However, an alternative explanation for the data are that individuals vary in their understanding of how to maximize income, with misunderstanding leading to the appearance of cooperation. We show that (i) individuals divide into the same behavioral types when playing with computers, whom they cannot be concerned with the welfare of; (ii) behavior across games with computers and humans is correlated and can be explained by variation in understanding of how to maximize income; (iii) misunderstanding correlates with higher levels of cooperation; and (iv) standard control questions do not guarantee understanding. These results cast doubt on certain experimental methods and demonstrate that a common assumption in behavioral economics experiments, that choices reveal motivations, will not necessarily hold.
引用
收藏
页码:1291 / 1296
页数:6
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