Gavrilets Sergey, Tverskoi Denis, Wang Nianyi, Wang Xiaomin, Ozaita Juan, Zhang Boyu, Sánchez Angel, Andrighetto Giulia
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Mathematics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Evol Hum Sci. 2024 Dec 3;6:e50. doi: 10.1017/ehs.2024.38. eCollection 2024.
Understanding and predicting human cooperative behaviour and belief dynamics remains a major challenge both from the scientific and practical perspectives. Because of the complexity and multiplicity of material, social and cognitive factors involved, both empirical and theoretical work tends to focus only on some snippets of the puzzle. Recently, a mathematical theory has been proposed that integrates material, social and cognitive aspects of behaviour and beliefs dynamics to explain how people make decisions in social dilemmas within heterogeneous groups. Here we apply this theory in two countries, China and Spain, through four long-term behavioural experiments utilising the Common Pool Resources game and the Collective Risk game. Our results show that material considerations carry the smallest weight in decision-making, while personal norms tend to be the most important factor. Empirical and normative expectations have intermediate weight in decision-making. Cognitive dissonance, social projection, logic constraints and cultural background play important roles in both decision-making and beliefs dynamics. At the individual level, we observe differences in the weights that people assign to factors involved in the decision-making and belief updating process. We identify different types of prosociality and rule-following associated with cultural differences, various channels for the effects of messaging, and culturally dependent interactions between sensitivity to messaging and conformity. Our results can put policy and information design on firmer ground, highlighting the need for interventions tailored to the situation at hand and to individual characteristics. Overall, this work demonstrates the theoretical and practical power of the theory in providing a more comprehensive understanding of human behaviour and beliefs.
从科学和实践的角度来看，理解和预测人类的合作行为以及信念动态变化仍然是一项重大挑战。由于涉及物质、社会和认知因素的复杂性和多样性，实证研究和理论研究往往都只关注这一难题的某些片段。最近，有人提出了一种数学理论，该理论整合了行为以及信念动态变化的物质、社会和认知方面，以解释人们在异质群体中的社会困境中如何做出决策。在此，我们通过四个长期行为实验，运用公共资源博弈和集体风险博弈，在两个国家——中国和西班牙应用了这一理论。我们的研究结果表明，物质因素在决策中所占权重最小，而个人规范往往是最重要的因素。实证预期和规范预期在决策中具有中等权重。认知失调、社会投射、逻辑约束和文化背景在决策和信念动态变化中都起着重要作用。在个体层面，我们观察到人们在决策和信念更新过程中赋予各因素的权重存在差异。我们识别出了与文化差异相关的不同类型的亲社会行为和遵循规则行为、信息传递影响的各种渠道，以及信息敏感度与从众之间的文化依赖型相互作用。我们的研究结果可为政策和信息设计提供更坚实的基础，强调需要针对具体情况和个体特征进行干预。总体而言，这项工作展示了该理论在更全面理解人类行为和信念方面的理论和实践力量。
