IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v116y2025ics2214804325000370.html

Influenced by others: Trusting behaviour and social influence

Author

Listed:
  • Schütze, Tobias
  • Nash, Kyle
  • Gehrke, Britta
  • Wichardt, Philipp C.

Abstract

This paper reports results from a trust game in which trustors, before deciding on their transfer, are shown a statement about the perception of the situation by another person. Statements expressed either suspicion, insecurity, worry of disappointment or curiosity. Trustors first had to indicate their identification with the statement before making trust game decisions. Compared to a standard trust game, all treatments negatively affect trusting behaviour, regardless of the message being framed negatively or mildly positively. The effect of the manipulations is moderated by neuroticism and the individual’s identification with the respective statement.

Suggested Citation

  • Schütze, Tobias & Nash, Kyle & Gehrke, Britta & Wichardt, Philipp C., 2025. "Influenced by others: Trusting behaviour and social influence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:116:y:2025:i:c:s2214804325000370
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2025.102370
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804325000370
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2025.102370?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergh, Andreas & Wichardt, Phillipp C., 2024. "On Credibility and Causality in Economics: A Critical Appraisal," Working Paper Series 1504, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    2. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri & Halladay, Brianna, 2016. "Experimental methods: Pay one or pay all," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PA), pages 141-150.
    3. Esther Duflo & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "The Role of Information and Social Interactions in Retirement Plan Decisions: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 815-842.
    4. Andreas Bergh & Philipp C. Wichardt & Philipp Christoph Wichardt, 2024. "On Credibility and Causality in Economics: A Critical Appraisal," CESifo Working Paper Series 11224, CESifo.
    5. Dearmon, Jacob & Grier, Kevin, 2009. "Trust and development," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 210-220, August.
    6. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    7. repec:plo:pone00:0078433 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gamba, Astrid & Regner, Tobias, 2019. "Preferences-dependent learning in the centipede game: The persistence of mistrust," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    2. Lucks, Konstantin E. & Lührmann, Melanie & Winter, Joachim, 2020. "Assortative matching and social interaction: A field experiment on adolescents’ risky choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 313-340.
    3. Berlingieri, Francesco & Kovacic, Matija & Stepanova, Elena, 2025. "Trust behaviour of sexual minorities: Evidence from a large-scale trust game experiment," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1582, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Costa-Gomes, Miguel A. & Huck, Steffen & Weizsäcker, Georg, 2014. "Beliefs and actions in the trust game: Creating instrumental variables to estimate the causal effect," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 88, pages 298-309.
    5. Su, Xin & Guo, Ruqiang & Hua, Shijia & Liu, Linjie & Zhang, Liang, 2025. "Time delay effects on evolutionary dynamics of N-player trust game with diverse investment behaviors," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 489(C).
    6. Wahl, Fabian, 2012. "Why it matters what people think: Beliefs, legal origins and the deep roots of trust," FZID Discussion Papers 52-2012, University of Hohenheim, Center for Research on Innovation and Services (FZID).
    7. Roxanne Kovacs & Maurice Dunaiski & Matteo M. Galizzi & Gianluca Grimalda & Rafael Hortala‐Vallve & Fabrice Murtin & Louis Putterman, 2024. "The determinants of trust: findings from large, representative samples in six OECD countries," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 91(364), pages 1521-1552, October.
    8. Kenneth S. Chan & Vivian Lei & Filip Vesely, 2024. "Escape poverty trap with trust? An experimental study," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 62(1), pages 37-66, February.
    9. Walther, Sven, 2025. "The Effect of Virtual Communication Channels on Human Behavior: A Literature Review," MPRA Paper 125223, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Thiemann, Petra & Schulz, Jonathan & Sunde, Uwe & Thöni, Christian, 2022. "Selection into experiments: New evidence on the role of preferences, cognition, and recruitment protocols," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    11. Sébastien Duchêne & Adrien Nguyen-Huu & Dimitri Dubois & Marc Willinger, 2021. "Why finance professionals hold green and brown assets? A lab-in-the-field experiment [Pourquoi investir dans le vert et le brun ? Une expérience sur des professionnels de la finance]," Working Papers hal-03285376, HAL.
    12. Bjornskov, Christian & Bogetic, Zeljko & Hillman, Arye L. & Popovic, Milenko, 2014. "Trust and identity in a small, post-socialist, post-crisis society," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6828, The World Bank.
    13. Baliamoune-Lutz, Mina, 2011. "Trust-based social capital, institutions, and development," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 335-346, August.
    14. Roxanne J. Kovacs & Mylene Lagarde & John Cairns, 2019. "Measuring patient trust: Comparing measures from a survey and an economic experiment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 641-652, May.
    15. Porter, Maria & Nuhu, Ahmed Salim & Nakasone, Eduardo & Maredia, Mywish K., 2025. "Trust, risk, and institutions: experimental evidence from a community of firms in Kenya," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    16. Alberto E. Chong & David A. Fleming & Hernán D. Bejarano, 2011. "Trust and Trustworthiness in the Aftermath of Natural Disasters: Experimental Evidence from the 2010 Chilean Earthquake," Working Papers 2011-15, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    17. Shu-Heng Chen & Bin-Tzong Chie & Tong Zhang, 2015. "Network-Based Trust Games: An Agent-Based Model," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 18(3), pages 1-5.
    18. Maria Bigoni & Stefania Bortolotti & Veronica Rattini, 2022. "A tale of two cities: an experiment on inequality and preferences," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 189-222, February.
    19. le Roux, Sara & Bopp, Fabian, 2025. "Social learning under ambiguity—An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    20. Andres Barinas-Forero, 2024. "Why should my group trust yours? Collective trust and trustworthiness under Economic Shocks," Documentos CEDE 21170, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:eee:soceco:v:116:y:2025:i:c:s2214804325000370. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.