合作(cooperation)行為的進(jìn)化機(jī)制是種群進(jìn)化生物學(xué)最重要的理論命題之一,。2002年瑞士學(xué)者Fehr和Gachter發(fā)表在Nature的論文中指出懲罰(punishment)是促進(jìn)合作的有效機(jī)制，這一觀點(diǎn)很快被學(xué)術(shù)界廣泛接受,。2008年Harvard大學(xué)的Nowak研究組在Nature上發(fā)表了關(guān)于可重復(fù)囚徒困境(repeated Prisoner's Dilemma)博弈的實(shí)驗(yàn)研究,，他們的結(jié)果也表明有代價(jià)處罰(costly punishment)能夠有效地促進(jìn)合作。
但是一項(xiàng)最新的研究結(jié)果表明在可重復(fù)囚徒困境博弈中有代價(jià)懲罰并不總是促進(jìn)合作,。這一結(jié)果將促進(jìn)人們?nèi)ジM(jìn)一步的思考懲罰是怎樣作用于合作行為的進(jìn)化,。由中科院動(dòng)物研究所陶毅研究組完成的這一最新研究結(jié)果已于2009年9月28日在《美國(guó)國(guó)家科學(xué)院院刊》（Proceeding of National Academy of Sciences USA)在線發(fā)表。Nature News在同一天發(fā)表評(píng)論員文章 (標(biāo)題為：When does punishment work?)中指出這一研究結(jié)果表明在博弈實(shí)驗(yàn)中我們會(huì)表現(xiàn)出什么樣的行為將主要依賴于“我們是誰”,。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原始出處：
PNAS September 28, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0905918106
Costly punishment does not always increase cooperation
Jia-Jia Wua, Bo-Yu Zhanga,b, Zhen-Xing Zhoub, Qiao-Qiao Hea, Xiu-Deng Zhenga, Ross Cressmanc,1 and Yi Taoa,1
aKey Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Centre for Computational Biology and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;
bSchool of Mathematical Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China; and
cDepartment of Mathematics, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3C5
In a pairwise interaction, an individual who uses costly punishment must pay a cost in order that the opponent incurs a cost. It has been argued that individuals will behave more cooperatively if they know that their opponent has the option of using costly punishment. We examined this hypothesis by conducting two repeated two-player Prisoner's Dilemma experiments, that differed in their payoffs associated to cooperation, with university students from Beijing as participants. In these experiments, the level of cooperation either stayed the same or actually decreased when compared with the control experiments in which costly punishment was not an option. We argue that this result is likely due to differences in cultural attitudes to cooperation and punishment based on similar experiments with university students from Boston that found cooperation did increase with costly punishment.
