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Decomposing Trust and Trustworthiness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Nava Ashraf ,
Iris Bohnet  and
Nikita Piankov†
Nava Ashraf
Affiliation:
Harvard Business School
Iris Bohnet*
Affiliation:
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
Nikita Piankov†
Affiliation:
Analysis Group, Boston
*
e-mail: Iris [email protected]
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Abstract

What motivates people to trust and be trustworthy? Is trust solely “calculative,” based on the expectation of trustworthiness, and trustworthiness only reciprocity? Employing a within-subject design, we run investment and dictator game experiments in Russia, South Africa and the United States. Additionally, we measured risk preferences and expectations of return. Expectations of return account for most of the variance in trust, but unconditional kindness also matters. Variance in trustworthiness is mainly accounted for by unconditional kindness, while reciprocity plays a comparatively small role. There exists some heterogeneity in motivation but people behave surprisingly similarly in the three countries studied.

Keywords

Trustreciprocitysocial preferencesgendercross-cultural experiments

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C72: Noncooperative Games
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 9 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Behavioral Economics , September 2006 , pp. 193 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic Supplementary Material Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-006-9122-4.

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