Cooperation is a common phenomenon in human societies. Indirect reciprocity is a candidate that sustains large-scale cooperation. If members of a community behave cooperatively only when it enhances one’s reputation, then the reputation of the target agents would collapse. However, the underlying mechanism of this negative evaluation is unclear. In this paper, we hypothesized that such a negative evaluation serves as a psychological counterstrategy against “reputational management,” and essentially helps to maintain reputation dynamics. We also focused on the development of social evaluation for these “calculating” agents. We investigated the validity of our hypothesis from an empirical perspective or a theoretical perspective. We also proposed a pathway to explore the cooperation system and reputation dynamics.
