Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States of America.
Department of Urban and Public Affairs, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Aug 23;19(8):e0307832. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307832. eCollection 2024.
Rule enforcement is critical in democratic, self-governing societies. Many political disputes occur when citizens do not understand the fundamental rationales for enforcement (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic). We examined how naïve groups learn and develop wise enforcement systems. Based on theories from behavioral economics, political science, psychology, and education, we predicted that groups need to experience failure of an enforcement system, but be guided on restorative justice principles to collectively learn from this failure. Undergraduate students (N = 288) from a Midwestern U.S. metropolitan university self-governed a simulated common-pool resource with real financial payoffs. Groups began with one of three conditions designed to create different experiences with enforcement and regulatory failure: (a) no enforcement (no communication or peer sanctioning), (b) lax enforcement (communication with peer-sanctioning), or (c) regulatory abuse (peer sanctioning without communication). Half then received facilitated guidance on restorative justice principles (e.g., discuss whether/why to use sanctions). To examine cooperation, we measured how well participants maintained the resource. To examine group learning, we created a novel coding system, which tracked groups' constitutional decisions about conservation agreements and enforcement, conceptual understanding, and the enforcement systems they created. The no-enforcement and lax-enforcement conditions quickly yielded moderate cooperation via voluntary agreements. However, such agreements prevented groups from discovering how and why to use enforcement (peer sanctioning) to improve performance. Initial exposure to regulatory failure had different effects depending on facilitation. Unfacilitated groups fixated on initial misconceptions, causing them to abandon or create less sophisticated enforcement systems, hindering cooperation. Facilitated groups learned from prior failure-discovering principles of wise enforcement (e.g., collective efficiency, self-restraint)-and created more sophisticated enforcement systems (e.g., coordinated sanctions) that improved cooperation. Guidance on restorative justice principles and experience with regulatory abuse may be necessary preconditions for naïve individuals to understand and develop wiser collective enforcement systems.
规则执行在民主自治社会中至关重要。当公民不理解执行的基本原理（例如 COVID-19 大流行）时，就会发生许多政治争议。我们研究了天真的群体如何学习和发展明智的执行系统。基于行为经济学、政治学、心理学和教育学的理论，我们预测群体需要经历执行系统的失败，但需要在恢复性司法原则的指导下，共同从失败中吸取教训。来自美国中西部大都市大学的本科生（N=288）自行管理一个具有实际财务收益的模拟共同资源。群体开始时处于三种条件之一，这些条件旨在创造不同的执行和监管失败体验：（a）不执行（无沟通或同伴制裁），（b）宽松执行（沟通和同伴制裁），或（c）监管滥用（无沟通的同伴制裁）。然后，一半的群体接受了关于恢复性司法原则的有指导的指导（例如，讨论是否/为什么使用制裁）。为了检验合作，我们衡量了参与者维护资源的情况。为了检验群体学习，我们创建了一个新的编码系统，该系统跟踪群体关于保护协议和执行、概念理解以及他们创建的执行系统的宪法决策。无执行和宽松执行条件很快通过自愿协议产生了中等程度的合作。然而，这些协议阻止了群体发现如何以及为什么使用执行（同伴制裁）来提高绩效。初始的监管失败经历根据促进而产生不同的效果。未经促进的群体专注于最初的误解，导致他们放弃或创建不那么复杂的执行系统，从而阻碍合作。经过促进的群体从之前的失败中吸取教训——发现明智的执行原则（例如，集体效率、自我克制）——并创建更复杂的执行系统（例如，协调制裁），从而提高合作。关于恢复性司法原则的指导和监管滥用的经验可能是天真个体理解和发展更明智的集体执行系统的必要前提条件。
