Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7tmb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T16:52:54.265Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Trust and reciprocity: extensions and robustness of triadic design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Giovanni Di Bartolomeo  and
Stefano Papa
Giovanni Di Bartolomeo*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Law, Faculty of Economics, Sapienza University of Rome, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy
Stefano Papa*
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, University of Teramo, Teramo, Italy
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Our paper reconsiders the triadic design proposed by Cox (Games and Economic Behavior 46:260–281, 2004) to identify trust and reciprocity in investment games. Specifically, we extend the design in two directions. First, we collect information on investors’ choices by using both the direct-response (as does Cox) and strategy methods. Using the latter, we are able to condition reciprocity on initial inequality, which is endogenous when investigating reciprocity. We demonstrate that the triadic design provides evidence for reciprocity once that initial inequality is considered. Second, we elicit expectations and test their coherence with the triadic outcomes. By examining the relationship between trust actions and expected gains, we analyze whether investors’ expectations are consistent with their behavior. Finally, we test for the existence of an emotional bias, i.e., whether expectation mismatches induce trustees to change actual choices from the planned ones.

Keywords

Other-regarding preferencesInvestment gameExpectationInequalityStrategy method
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 100 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-014-9428-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

References

Ashraf, N, Bohnet, I, & Piankov, N (2006). Decomposing trust and trustworthiness. Experimental Economics, 9, 193–208. 10.1007/s10683-006-9122-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bardsley, N, Cubitt, R, Loomes, G, Moffatt, P, Starmer, C, & Sugden, R (2010). Experimental economics: Rethinking the rules, Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg, J, Dickhaut, J, & McCabe, K (1995). Trust, reciprocity and social history. Games and Economic Behavior, 10, 122–142. 10.1006/game.1995.1027CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanco, M, Engelmann, D, Koch, AK, & Normann, H-T (2010). Belief elicitation in experiments: Is there a hedging problem?. Experimental Economics, 13, 412–438. 10.1007/s10683-010-9249-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandts, J, & Charness, G (2011). The strategy versus the direct -response method: A first survey of experimental comparisons. Experimental Economics, 14, 375–398. 10.1007/s10683-011-9272-xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brülhart, M., & Usunier, J. C., (2008). “Verified trust: Reciprocity, altruism, and randomness in trust games,” IRM Working Paper 809, Institute of Research in Management, University of Lausanne.Google Scholar
Brülhart, M, & Usunier, JC (2012). Does the trust game measure trust?. Economics Letters, 115, 20–23. 10.1016/j.econlet.2011.11.039CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capra, C. M., Lanier, K., & Meer, S. (2008). “Attitudinal and behavioral measures of trust: A new comparison,” Department of Economics, Emory University, Mimeo.Google Scholar
Cardenas, JC, & Carpenter, J (2008). Behavioural development economics: Lessons from field labs in the developing world. Journal of Development Studies, 44, 311–338. 10.1080/00220380701848327CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, JP (2007). The demand for punishment. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 62, 522–542. 10.1016/j.jebo.2005.05.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, MR, & Castillo, M (2011). Trustworthiness and social capital in South Africa: Analysis of actual living standards experiments and artifactual field experiments. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 59, 695–722. 10.1086/660000CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cason, TN, & Mui, V-L (1998). Social influence in the sequential dictator game. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 42, 248–265. 10.1006/jmps.1998.1213CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charness, G (2004). Attribution and reciprocity in an experimental labor market. Journal of Labor Economics, 22, 665–688. 10.1086/383111CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charness, G, & Haruvy, E (2002). Altruism, equity, and reciprocity in a gift-exchange experiment: An encompassing approach. Games and Economic Behavior, 40, 203–231. 10.1016/S0899-8256(02)00006-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coricelli, G, Morales, LG, & Mahlstedt, A (2006). The investment game with asymmetric information. Metroeconomica, 57, 13–30. 10.1111/j.1467-999X.2006.00231.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, JC Zwick, R, & Rapoport, A (2002). Trust, reciprocity, and other-regarding preferences: Groups vs. individuals and males vs. females. Experimental Business Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Cox, JC (2004). How to identify trust and reciprocity. Games and Economic Behavior, 46, 260–281. 10.1016/S0899-8256(03)00119-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, JC (2009). Trust and reciprocity: Implications of game triads and social contexts. New Zealand Economic Papers, 43, 89–104. 10.1080/00779950903005473CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, JC, & Deck, CA (2005). On the nature of reciprocal motives. Economic Inquiry, 43, 623–635. 10.1093/ei/cbi043CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, JC, & Deck, CA (2006). When are women more generous than men?. Economic Inquiry, 44, 587–598. 10.1093/ei/cbj042CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, JC, Friedman, D, & Sadiraj, V (2008). Revealed altruism. Econometrica, 76, 31–69. 10.1111/j.0012-9682.2008.00817.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, J. C., Sadiraj, V., & Schmidt, U. (2014). Paradoxes and mechanisms for choice under risk. Experimental Economics. 1–36. (on-print).Google Scholar
Dawes, CT, Fowler, JH, Johnson, T, McElreath, R, & Smirnov, O (2007). Egalitarian motives in humans. Nature, 446, 794–796. 10.1038/nature05651CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fischbacher, U (2007). z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments. Experimental Economics, 10, 171–178. 10.1007/s10683-006-9159-4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaeser, EL, Laibson, DI, Scheinkman, JA, & Soutter, CL (2000). Measuring trust. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115, 811–846. 10.1162/003355300554926CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gui, B, & Stanca, L (2010). Happiness and relational goods: Well-being and interpersonal relations in the economic sphere. International Review of Economics, 57, 105–118. 10.1007/s12232-010-0099-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Güth, W, Schmittberger, R, & Schwarze, B (1982). An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 3, 367–388. 10.1016/0167-2681(82)90011-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Innocenti, A, Pazienza, MG Innocenti, A, & Sbriglia, P (2008). Gender differences in altruism. An experimental study. Games, rationality and behaviour. Essays in behavioural game theory and experiments, Houndmills and New York: Palgrave McMillan 134–158.Google Scholar
Innocenti, A, Pazienza, MG Bettio, F, & Vershchagina, A (2008). The gender effect in the laboratory. Experimenter bias and altruism. Frontiers in the Economics of Gender, New York: Routledge 243–265.Google Scholar
Johnson, ND, & Mislin, AA (2011). Trust games: A meta-analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32, 805–889. 10.1016/j.joep.2011.05.007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manski, CF (2002). Identification of decision rules in experiments on simple games of proposal and response. European Economic Review, 46, 880–891. 10.1016/S0014-2921(01)00222-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, AE Kagal, J, & Roth, AE (1995). Bargaining experiments. Handbook of experimental economics, Princeton: Princeton University Press 253–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selten, R, & Sauermann, H (1967). Die Strategiemethode zur Erforschung des eingeschränkt rationalen Verhaltens im Rahmen eines Oligopolexperiments. Beiträge zur experimentellen Wirtschaftsforschung, Tübingen: Mohr 136–168.Google Scholar
Sonnemans, J. & Offerman, T. (2001). “Is the quadratic scoring rule really incentive compatible?,” Working Paper, CREED, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Stanca, L (2010). How to be kind? Outcomes versus intentions as determinants of fairness. Economics Letters, 106, 19–21. 10.1016/j.econlet.2009.09.013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanca, L, Bruni, L, & Corazzini, L (2009). Testing theories of reciprocity: Do motivations matter?. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 71, 233–245. 10.1016/j.jebo.2009.04.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanca, L, Bruni, L, & Mantovani, M (2011). The effect of motivations on social indirect reciprocity: An experimental analysis. Applied Economics Letters, 18, 1709–1711. 10.1080/13504851.2011.560105CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Di Bartolomeo and Papa supplementary material

Technical appendix: Experiment instructions
Download Di Bartolomeo and Papa supplementary material(File)
File 86 KB