評論
打印
Science and Technolgy
科技
The evolution of co-operation
合作關系的演變
Make or break?
建立還是終止？
Social networking tames cheats
社交網絡馴服欺騙者
HOW people collaborate, in the face of numerous temptations to cheat, is an important field of psychological and economic research.
在無數互相欺騙的誘惑中，人們如何建立合作關系？這是心理和經濟學研究的一個很重要的領域。
A lot of this research focuses on the "tit-for-tat" theory of co-operation:
關于這個領域的很多研究都集中在"以牙還牙"的合作理論：
that humans are disposed, when dealing with another person, to behave in a generous manner until that other person shows himself not to be generous. At this point co-operation is withdrawn.
那就是，一個人在處理和另外一個人的關系時，開始都會選擇慷慨的態(tài)度，直到對方顯露出不慷慨的跡象，這個時候也是合作關系終止的時候。
Fool me once, in other words, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
用另外一種話說，就是"欺我一回，罪過在你，欺我二回，罪過在我。"
When he encounters such a withdrawal of collaboration, the theory goes, the malefactor will learn the error of his ways and become a more co-operative individual.
當遭遇這樣的一次合作終止，如理論所說，作為合作規(guī)則的破壞者，他會開始反省他處事的過錯，并且開始變成更加樂于合作的個體。
And there is experimental evidence, based on specially designed games, that tit-for-tat does work for pairs of people. Human societies, though, are more complex than mere dyads.
在特殊設計的游戲基礎上得出的實驗證據顯示，"以牙還牙"理論在兩個人的關系中確實奏效。
And until recently, it has been difficult to model that complexity in the laboratory.
然而人類社會關系遠比兩兩之間更為復雜。
But a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Nicholas Christakis and his colleagues at Harvard has changed that.
直到最近，這種復雜的關系還難以在實驗室中模擬出來。但在這周，哈佛大學Nicholas Christakis和他的同事在"國家科學院院刊"上發(fā)表的論文改變了這個狀況。
Dr Christakis arranged for a collaboration-testing game to be played over the web, with many participants.
Christakis博士在網上安排了一場多人參與的實驗測試游戲。
As a result, he and his team have gained a more sophisticated insight into the way co-operation develops.
經過這個實驗，他和同事對人際合作發(fā)展方式有了更深的理解。
Dr Christakis used what is known as a public-goods game for his experiment.
Christakis博士在這個實驗中采用稱為"公共利益"的游戲。
At the beginning of such a game, points are doled out to each participant. During every round, players are given the opportunity to donate points to their neighbours.
游戲之初，每個參與者分發(fā)到少量的分數。在接下來每一輪游戲中，參與者都有機會贈送分數給他的鄰居。
Points so donated are augmented by an equal number from the masters of the game.
贈送者的分數能夠在游戲管理者那里得到與之舍出分數相等量的增長。
If everyone co-operates, then, everyone ends up richer. A "defector" who refuses to donate to his co-operating neighbours will, however, benefit at the expense of those neighbours.
如果參與者都合作的話，每個人最終分數都會比最開始的多。而拒絕贈送分數的"破壞者"卻從他鄰居們的損失中獲益。
At the game's end, the points are converted into real money, to ensure that proper incentives are in place.
為了保證適當的獎勵到位，游戲后這些分數可以變換成錢。
To play his large-scale public-goods game, Dr Christakis recruited 785 volunteers via Mechanical Turk—a service provided by Amazon, an online retailer, that works by farming out small tasks to an army of individual workers.
為了展開這個大型的"公共利益"游戲，Christakis博士通過網上零售商亞馬遜提供的土耳其機器人網絡服務招收了785名志愿者。這是個發(fā)包小任務給個體勞動隊伍的服務網絡。
Each volunteer was randomly assigned links to, on average, eight other players. Together, they played repeated rounds of one of three variations of the game.
在這個網絡上，每個志愿者大約和八個隨機分配的參與者連接組隊，并根據三種設定的游戲模式重復開展。
In the first, participants always interacted with the same group of people.
第一種模式，參與者總是和同一組人合作。
In the second, the connections were randomly reshuffled after each round.
第二種模式，每一輪游戲后合作者都隨機重組。
In the final version, one-third of the possible pairings between participants were chosen at random after each round (such pairs may or may not, therefore, have been dealing with each other in the previous round).
最后一種，每一輪后，三分之一的組合將被選中并隨機重組（因此這些重組的組合中可能有人在前面的游戲中已經合作過了。)。
One player from each pair was first told or reminded of how the other had behaved in the previous round, and was then asked whether he wanted to break his connection with that player, if he already had one, or form a new connection, if he had not.
組合中一人會被告知或提醒他的合作對象在前面一輪游戲中的表現，他可以選擇是否解除和這個人的合作，如果他已經有一個合作對象的話；如果他沒有合作對象，他則可以選擇是否建立新的合作聯系。
In all versions of the game, roughly 60% of players started out co-operating.
在所有三種模式中，大約60%的參與者最開始都是遵守合作規(guī)則。
However, in the first two, this decreased over time as the pernicious influence of the freeloaders spread.
可是頭兩種模式中，隨著吃白食惡劣影響的擴展，遵守的人數也跟著下降。
The larger the fraction of a subject's partners who defected in a given round, the less likely that person was to co-operate in the next—classical tit-for-tat.
一個參與者合作過的對象中破壞規(guī)則的人數比例越高，這個參與者在下一輪的游戲中越不可能遵守合作規(guī)則-典型的"以牙還牙"。
However, this tit-for-tat retaliation was not enough to save co-operation, and after a dozen rounds only 10-20% of the players were still willing to co-operate.
然后，這種"以牙還牙"的報復并不能拯救合作的持續(xù)，在十幾輪游戲后，只有10-20%的參與者還愿意合作。
In the variant where participants had some choice over whom they interacted with, though, the amount of co-operation stayed stable as the rounds progressed.
然而在參與者可以選擇合作對象的模式中，合作的人數隨著游戲的進行保持穩(wěn)定。
When Dr Christakis and his team looked at how the relationships between players were evolving in this third version, they found that connections between two co-operators were much more likely to be maintained than links that involved a defector.
Christakis博士和他的團隊觀察第三種模式中參與者的關系如何演變時，他們發(fā)現沒有碰到過破壞者的組合更容易保持合作。
Over time, the co-operators accumulated more social connections than the defectors did.
在游戲中，合作者比破壞者積累了更多的合作關系。
Furthermore, as they were shunned, the defectors began to change their behaviour.
而且，被拒絕后，破壞者也開始改變他們的行為。
A defector's likelihood of switching to co-operation increased with the number of players who had broken links with him in the previous round.
在前面一輪游戲中和他中止合作的人越多，他越有可能轉向合作者。
Unlike straightforward tit-for-tat, social retaliation was having a marked effect.
不像簡單的以牙還牙，社會報復有一個標記作用。
The next question, then, is whether such a mechanism holds outside the laboratory.
接下來的問題是，這樣的一個機制在實驗室外是否可行？
To find out, Dr Christakis has forged links with some anthropologists.
為了找出答案，Christakis博士已經和一些人類學家取得聯系。
They hope to report the answer soon.
他們希望能夠很快得出結論。
