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What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You: A Laboratory Analysis of Betrayal Aversion

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Author Info

  • Jason Aimone

    () (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University)

  • Daniel Houser

    () (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University)

Abstract

Trust promotes economic growth and development, and previous research has shed much light on reciprocity and other motives for trusting decisions. Why people choose not to trust has received substantially less attention, perhaps in part because not trusting is predicted by standard economic theory: selfish people consider the (perhaps subjective) stochastic nature of the environment and make the earnings-maximizing decision. This explanation is incomplete: we provide evidence from a laboratory analysis with an investment game that people's decisions vary according to how an environment's uncertainty will be resolved. In particular, if resolving uncertainty requires an investor to learn whether her trustee chose to betray then she is much less likely to trust. Our data thus provide evidence that ¡°betrayal aversion¡± detrimentally affects propensities for trusting decisions. Our results also emphasize the importance of impersonal, institution-mediated exchange in promoting investment and economic efficiency.

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File URL: http://repec.ices-gmu.org/RePEc/pdf/1008.pdf
File Function: Latest version, 2008
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science in its series Working Papers with number 1008.

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Length: 24 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2008
Date of revision: Sep 2008
Handle: RePEc:gms:wpaper:1008

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References

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  1. Daniel Houser & Daniel Schunk & Joachim Winter, 2006. "Trust Games Measure Trust," MEA discussion paper series 06112, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
  2. McCabe, Kevin & Houser, Daniel & Ryan, Lee & Smith, Vernon & Trouard, Ted, 2001. "A Functional Imaging Study of Cooperation in Two-Person reciprocal Exchange," MPRA Paper 5172, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  3. Jeffrey A. Livingston, 2005. "How Valuable Is a Good Reputation? A Sample Selection Model of Internet Auctions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 453-465, August.
  4. Ernst Fehr & Armin Falk, 2003. "Wage Rigidity in a Competitive Incomplete Contract Market," Labor and Demography 0305001, EconWPA.
  5. Hong, Kesseley & Bohnet, Iris, 2004. "Status and Distrust: The Relevance of Inequality and Betrayal Aversion," Working Paper Series rwp04-041, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
  6. Fehr, Ernst & Fischbacher, Urs & Kosfeld, Michael, 2005. "Neuroeconomic Foundation of Trust and Social Preferences," CEPR Discussion Papers 5127, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  7. McCabe, Kevin A. & Rigdon, Mary L. & Smith, Vernon L., 2003. "Positive reciprocity and intentions in trust games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 267-275, October.
  8. Schechter, Laura, 2007. "Traditional trust measurement and the risk confound: An experiment in rural Paraguay," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 272-292, February.
  9. Iris Bohnet & Fiona Greig & Benedikt Herrmann & Richard Zeckhauser, 2007. "Betrayal Aversion: Evidence from Brazil, China, Oman, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States," Discussion Papers 2007-08, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
  10. Eckel, Catherine C. & Wilson, Rick K., 2004. "Is trust a risky decision?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 447-465, December.
  11. Erte Xiao & Daniel Houser, 2005. "Emotion expression in human punishment behavior," Experimental 0504003, EconWPA, revised 18 May 2005.
  12. Daniel Houser & John Wooders, 2006. "Reputation in Auctions: Theory, and Evidence from eBay," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 353-369, 06.
  13. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher & Michael Kosfeld, 2005. "Neuroeconomic Foundations of Trust and Social Preferences: Initial Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 346-351, May.
  14. Bohnet, Iris & Croson, Rachel, 2004. "Trust and trustworthiness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 443-445, December.
  15. Bohnet, Iris & Zeckhauser, Richard, 2004. "Trust, risk and betrayal," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 467-484, December.
  16. Vernon L. Smith, 1994. "Economics in the Laboratory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 113-131, Winter.
  17. Christoph Vanberg, 2008. "Why Do People Keep Their Promises? An Experimental Test of Two Explanations -super-1," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1467-1480, November.
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Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Temptation
    by Nicholas Gruen in Club Troppo on 2008-11-12 23:47:33
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Cited by:
  1. Daniel Houser & Daniel Schunk & Joachim Winter & Erte Xiao, 2010. "Temptation and commitment in the laboratory," IEW - Working Papers 488, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
  2. Steffen Keck & Natalia Karelaia, 2012. "Does competition foster trust? The role of tournament incentives," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 204-228, March.
  3. Jason A. Aimone & Daniel Houser, 2012. "Harnessing the Benefits of Betrayal Aversion," Working Papers 1030, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science.

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