Han The Anh, Pereira Luís Moniz, Santos Francisco C, Lenaerts Tom
1] AI lab, Computer Science Department, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium [2] MLG, Département d'Informatique, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Boulevard du Triomphe CP212, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
Sci Rep. 2013;3:2695. doi: 10.1038/srep02695.
When starting a new collaborative endeavor, it pays to establish upfront how strongly your partner commits to the common goal and what compensation can be expected in case the collaboration is violated. Diverse examples in biological and social contexts have demonstrated the pervasiveness of making prior agreements on posterior compensations, suggesting that this behavior could have been shaped by natural selection. Here, we analyze the evolutionary relevance of such a commitment strategy and relate it to the costly punishment strategy, where no prior agreements are made. We show that when the cost of arranging a commitment deal lies within certain limits, substantial levels of cooperation can be achieved. Moreover, these levels are higher than that achieved by simple costly punishment, especially when one insists on sharing the arrangement cost. Not only do we show that good agreements make good friends, agreements based on shared costs result in even better outcomes.
在开展新的合作项目时，事先明确合作伙伴对共同目标的承诺程度以及在合作被违反时可能获得的补偿是很有必要的。生物学和社会背景下的各种例子表明，就事后补偿达成事先协议的情况很普遍，这表明这种行为可能是由自然选择塑造的。在这里，我们分析这种承诺策略的进化相关性，并将其与代价高昂的惩罚策略（即不达成事先协议）联系起来。我们表明，当安排承诺协议的成本在一定范围内时，可以实现相当程度的合作。此外，这些合作水平高于简单的代价高昂的惩罚所达到的水平，尤其是当一方坚持分担安排成本时。我们不仅表明良好的协议能结交好朋友，基于分担成本的协议会带来更好的结果。
