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Is Trust Self-Fulfilling? An Experimental Study

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Bacharach
  • Gerardo A. Guerra
  • Daniel John Zizzo

Abstract

A person is said to be `trust responsive` if she fulfils trust because she believes the truster trusts her. The experiment we report was designed to test for trust responsiveness and its robustness across payoff structures, and to disentangle it from other possible factors making for trustworthiness, including perceived kindness, perceived need, and inequality aversion. We elicit the truster`s confidence that the trustee will fulfil, and the trustee`s belief about the truster`s confidence after the trustee receives evidence relevant to this. We find evidence of strong trust responsiveness. We also find that perceptions of kindness and of need increase trust responsiveness, and that perceptions of kindness and need raise fulfilling rates only in conjunction with trust responsiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Bacharach & Gerardo A. Guerra & Daniel John Zizzo, 2001. "Is Trust Self-Fulfilling? An Experimental Study," Economics Series Working Papers 76, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:76
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Morgenstern, Albrecht, 2004. "Efficiency concerns and incentive provision--an experimental study," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 335-341, June.
    2. Pelligra, Vittorio, 2006. "Trust, Reciprocity and Institutional Design: Lessons from Behavioural Economics," AICCON Working Papers 37-2006, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    3. Francesco Farina & Niall O'Higgins & Patrizia Sbriglia, 2008. "Eliciting motives for trust and reciprocity by attitudinal and behavioural measures," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 021, University of Siena.
    4. Goeschl, Timo & Jarke, Johannes, 2017. "Trust, but verify? Monitoring, inspection costs, and opportunism under limited observability," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 320-330.
    5. V. Pelligra, 2004. "How to incentive Who? Intra-personal and inter-personal mechanisms," Working Paper CRENoS 200404, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    6. Charness, Gary & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2003. "Promises & Partnership," Research Papers in Economics 2003:3, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    7. Brian S. Collins & Robin Mansell, 2004. "Cyber trust and crime prevention: a synthesis of the state-of-the-art science reviews," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4252, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Gary Charness & Martin Dufwenberg, 2006. "Promises and Partnership," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1579-1601, November.
    9. Farina, Francesco & O'Higgins, Niall & Sbriglia, Patrizia, 2009. "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action: Eliciting motives for trust and reciprocity by attitudinal and behavioural measures," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 253-265, December.
    10. V. Pelligra, 2005. "Banking with sentiments. A model of fiduciary interactions in micro-credit programs," Working Paper CRENoS 200503, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    11. Ermisch, John & Gambetta, Diego, 2006. "People’s trust: the design of a survey-based experiment," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-34, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    12. Alessandro Innocenti & Maria Grazia Pazienza, 2006. "Altruism and Gender in the Trust Game," Labsi Experimental Economics Laboratory University of Siena 005, University of Siena.
    13. Alessandro Innocenti & Maria Grazia Pazienza, 2004. "Experimenter bias across gender differences," Department of Economics University of Siena 438, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    14. ATTANASI Giuseppe & NAGEL Rosemarie, 2008. "A Survey of Psychological Games: Theoretical Findings and Experimental Evidence," LERNA Working Papers 08.07.251, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    15. Sell, Friedrich L., 2007. "More about economic and non-economic determinants of (mutual) trust and trustworthiness," Working Papers in Economics 2007,2, Bundeswehr University Munich, Economic Research Group.
    16. Guerra, Gerardo & John Zizzo, Daniel, 2004. "Trust responsiveness and beliefs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 25-30, September.
    17. Michael Bacharach & Gerardo Guerra & Daniel Zizzo, 2007. "The Self-Fulfilling Property of Trust: An Experimental Study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 349-388, December.
    18. Ryan Murphy & Amnon Rapoport & James Parco, 2006. "The breakdown of cooperation in iterative real-time trust dilemmas," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(2), pages 147-166, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    trust game; experiment; trust responsiveness; kindness; need to trust; belief elicitation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

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