Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124-0751, USA.
Behav Brain Sci. 2013 Feb;36(1):1-15. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X11002160. Epub 2013 Feb 1.
Minimizing the costs that others impose upon oneself and upon those in whom one has a fitness stake, such as kin and allies, is a key adaptive problem for many organisms. Our ancestors regularly faced such adaptive problems (including homicide, bodily harm, theft, mate poaching, cuckoldry, reputational damage, sexual aggression, and the infliction of these costs on one’s offspring, mates, coalition partners, or friends). One solution to this problem is to impose retaliatory costs on an aggressor so that the aggressor and other observers will lower their estimates of the net benefits to be gained from exploiting the retaliator in the future. We posit that humans have an evolved cognitive system that implements this strategy – deterrence – which we conceptualize as a revenge system. The revenge system produces a second adaptive problem: losing downstream gains from the individual on whom retaliatory costs have been imposed. We posit, consequently, a subsidiary computational system designed to restore particular relationships after cost-imposing interactions by inhibiting revenge and motivating behaviors that signal benevolence for the harmdoer. The operation of these systems depends on estimating the risk of future exploitation by the harmdoer and the expected future value of the relationship with the harmdoer. We review empirical evidence regarding the operation of these systems, discuss the causes of cultural and individual differences in their outputs, and sketch their computational architecture.
将他人强加给自己和自己有利益关系的人（如亲属和盟友）的成本最小化，是许多生物面临的一个关键适应问题。我们的祖先经常面临这样的适应问题（包括杀人、身体伤害、盗窃、配偶抢夺、戴绿帽子、名誉受损、性侵犯以及将这些成本强加给子女、配偶、联盟伙伴或朋友）。解决这个问题的一个方法是对侵略者施加报复性成本，以便侵略者和其他观察者降低他们对未来从报复者身上获得的净收益的估计。我们假设人类有一个进化的认知系统来执行这种策略——威慑，我们将其概念化为复仇系统。复仇系统会产生第二个适应问题：失去因施加报复性成本而遭受损失的个体的下游收益。因此，我们假设存在一个辅助计算系统，旨在通过抑制复仇和激励对伤害者表示善意的行为，在施加成本的互动后恢复特定的关系。这些系统的运作取决于估计伤害者未来剥削的风险和与伤害者的关系的预期未来价值。我们回顾了关于这些系统运作的实证证据，讨论了它们输出的文化和个体差异的原因，并勾勒了它们的计算架构。
