Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Cogn Sci. 2023 Aug;47(8):e13326. doi: 10.1111/cogs.13326.
Social expectations guide people's evaluations of others' behaviors, but the origins of these expectations remain unclear. It is traditionally thought that people's expectations depend on their past observations of others' behavior, and people harshly judge atypical behavior. Here, we considered that social expectations are also influenced by a drive for reciprocity, and people evaluate others' actions by reflecting on their own decisions. To compare these views, we performed four studies. Study 1 used an Ultimatum Game task where participants alternated Responder and Proposer roles. Modeling participants' expectations suggested they evaluated the fairness of received offers via comparisons to their own offers. Study 2 replicated these findings and showed that observing selfish behavior (lowball offers) only promoted acceptance of selfishness if observers started acting selfishly themselves. Study 3 generalized the findings, demonstrating that they also arise in the Public Goods Game, emerge cross-culturally, and apply to antisocial punishment whereby selfish players punish generosity. Finally, Study 4 introduced the Trust Game and showed that participants trusted players who reciprocated their behavior, even if it was selfish, as much as they trusted generous players. Overall, this research shows that social expectations and evaluations are rooted in drives for reciprocity. This carries theoretical implications, speaking to a parallel in the mechanisms driving both decision-making and social evaluations, along with practical importance for understanding and promoting cooperation.
社会期望指导着人们对他人行为的评价，但这些期望的起源仍不清楚。传统上认为，人们的期望取决于他们过去对他人行为的观察，并且人们会严厉地评判非典型行为。在这里，我们认为社会期望也受到互惠动机的影响，人们通过反思自己的决策来评价他人的行为。为了比较这些观点，我们进行了四项研究。研究 1 使用了最后通牒博弈任务，参与者轮流扮演响应者和提议者的角色。对参与者期望的建模表明，他们通过与自己的提议进行比较来评估收到的提议是否公平。研究 2 复制了这些发现，并表明如果观察到的人自己也开始表现出自私行为（低价出价），那么观察到自私行为只会促进对自私行为的接受。研究 3 将这些发现推广到了公共物品博弈中，表明它们也出现在跨文化中，并且适用于反社会惩罚，即自私的玩家会惩罚慷慨的玩家。最后，研究 4 引入了信任博弈，并表明参与者信任那些回报他们行为的玩家，即使他们的行为是自私的，就像他们信任慷慨的玩家一样。总的来说，这项研究表明，社会期望和评价是建立在互惠动机的基础上的。这具有理论意义，表明在驱动决策和社会评价的机制上存在平行关系，对于理解和促进合作具有实际意义。
