The paper employs laboratory experimentation to study the effect of competition on truth telling and trust in communication. A sequence of either competitive or cooperative interactions preceded an experimental communication game. In the game, informed advisors sent a recommendation to decision-makers who faced uncertainty about the consequences of their choice. While many advisors told the truth against their monetary self-interest, the propensity to tell the truth was unaffected by the contextual priming. In contrast, decision-makers trusted significantly less in a competitive context. The effect was strongest when they faced full uncertainty. The paper relates this result to psychological and neuro-economic findings on automatic information processing. The data of this study were largely in line with Subjective Equilibrium Analysis (Kalai and Lehrer, 1995).
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim & Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim in its series Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications with number
08-04.
Length: 29 pages Date of creation: 10 Apr 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:xrs:sfbmaa:08-04
Note: Financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 504, at the University of Mannheim, is gratefully acknowledged. Contact details of provider: Postal: D-68131 Mannheim Phone: (49) (0) 621-292-2547 Fax: (49) (0) 621-292-5594 Email: Web page: http://www.sfb504.uni-mannheim.de/ More information through EDIRC
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silane & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1996.
"Trust in Large Organizations,"
NBER Working Papers
5864, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Jordi Brandts & Arno Riedl & Frans van Winden, 2004.
"Competition and Well-Being,"
UFAE and IAE Working Papers
608.04, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
[Downloadable!]
Brandts,Jordi & Riedl,Arno & Winden,Frans,van, 2005.
"Competition and Well-Being,"
Research Memoranda
033, Maastricht : METEOR, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization.
[Downloadable!]
Kalai, Ehud & Lehrer, Ehud, 1993.
"Subjective Games and Equilibria,"
Working Papers
875, California Institute of Technology, Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
[Downloadable!]