Trust and Trustworthiness in College: An Experimental Analysis

We use experimental data to examine the effect of ethnicity (foreign, indigenous, and mestizo) and gender on trust and trustworthiness in Peru. Comparing to the foreign group, we find that the indigenous group is more trusted (positive discrimination), while the mestizo group is less trustworthy (negative discrimination). Likewise, subjects reciprocate more when a male acts as their counterpart. We further analyze whether cognitive ability, the Big Five Personality Traits, and the social dominance orientation scale (SODS) can predict trust and trustworthiness. We find that the Cognitive Reáection Test score is positively correlated with trust, while the cumulative college GPA is negatively correlated with trustworthiness. We find that neuroticism is correlated with trusting behavior, while the SODS is (negatively) correlated with the trustworthiness ratio.