Department of Psychology, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555, 2300 RB, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Center for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making (CREED), University of Amsterdam, P.O. Box 1551, 1001 NB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Nat Commun. 2019 Feb 15;10(1):776. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-08727-8.
Humans exhibit a remarkable capacity for cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals. Yet, human cooperation is neither universal, nor stable. Instead, cooperation is often bounded to members of particular groups, and such groups endogenously form or break apart. Cooperation networks are parochial and under constant reconfiguration. Here, we demonstrate how parochial cooperation networks endogenously emerge as a consequence of simple reputation heuristics people may use when deciding to cooperate or defect. These reputation heuristics, such as "a friend of a friend is a friend" and "the enemy of a friend is an enemy" further lead to the dynamic formation and fission of cooperative groups, accompanied by a dynamic rise and fall of cooperation among agents. The ability of humans to safeguard kin-independent cooperation through gossip and reputation may be, accordingly, closely interlinked with the formation of group-bounded cooperation networks that are under constant reconfiguration, ultimately preventing global and stable cooperation.
人类在遗传上无关的个体之间表现出非凡的合作能力。然而，人类的合作既不是普遍的，也不是稳定的。相反，合作往往局限于特定群体的成员，而这些群体则会自发地形成或分裂。合作网络是狭隘的，并在不断重新配置。在这里，我们展示了简单的声誉启发式如何导致狭隘的合作网络作为人们在决定合作或背叛时可能使用的决策结果而自发出现。这些声誉启发式，如“朋友的朋友是朋友”和“朋友的敌人是敌人”，进一步导致合作群体的动态形成和分裂，伴随着代理人之间合作的动态兴衰。人类通过八卦和声誉来维护与亲属无关的合作的能力，因此可能与不断重新配置的群体约束合作网络的形成密切相关，最终阻止全球和稳定的合作。
