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HOW people collaborate, in the face of numeroustemptations to cheat, is an important field ofpsychological and economic research. A lot of thisresearch focuses on the tit-for-tat theory of co-operation: that humans are disposed, when dealingwith another person, to behave in a generousmanner until that other person shows himself not tobe generous. At this point co-operation iswithdrawn. Fool me once, in other words, shameon you. Fool me twice, shame on me. 人们在难以数计的谎言诱惑下会怎样进行合作，是心理学和经济学研究中的重要课题。有关这个课题的研究通常集中于对投桃报李理论的研究，这个理论认为：人们总是倾向于向别人表现慷慨，除非对方表现出不慷慨的态度。在这个时候合作往往会终止。换句话说，人如果受到一次愚弄，或许是因为错在对方。如果再次受到对方愚弄，就只能怪自己不吸取教训了。 When he encounters such a withdrawal of collaboration, the theory goes, the malefactor willlearn the error of his ways and become a more co-operative individual. And there isexperimental evidence, based on specially designed games, that tit-for-tat does work forpairs of people. Human societies, though, are more complex than mere dyads. And untilrecently, it has been difficult to model that complexity in the laboratory. But a paper publishedthis week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Nicholas Christakis and hiscolleagues at Harvard has changed that. Dr Christakis arranged for a collaboration-testinggame to be played over the web, with many participants. As a result, he and his team havegained a more sophisticated insight into the way co-operation develops. | 
