IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v94y2012i1p246-259.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Observers Predict Trustworthiness?

Author

Listed:
  • Michèle Belot

    (Oxford University)

  • V. Bhaskar

    (University College London)

  • Jeroen van de Ven

    (University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

We investigate whether experimental subjects can predict behavior in a prisoner's dilemma played on a TV show. Subjects report probabilistic beliefs that a player cooperates, before and after the players communicate. Subjects correctly predict that women and players who make a voluntary promise are more likely to cooperate. They are able to distinguish truth from lies when a player is asked about her intentions by the host. Subjects are to some extent able to predict behavior; their beliefs are 7~percentage points higher for cooperators than for defectors. We also study their Bayesian updating. Beliefs do not satisfy the martingale property and display mean reversion. © 2011 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Michèle Belot & V. Bhaskar & Jeroen van de Ven, 2012. "Can Observers Predict Trustworthiness?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 246-259, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:94:y:2012:i:1:p:246-259
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/REST_a_00146
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:94:y:2012:i:1:p:246-259. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.