Do I Care if You Know I Betrayed You?

James Cox and Danyang Li

No 2012-14, Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series from Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

Abstract: It has been reported that betrayal aversion in influences the trust decision (Bohnet and Zeckhauser 2004; Bohnet et al. 2008). This paper adds to the literature by examining how concern for others' disutility from betrayal can affect the decision to repay trust. We compare trustees' behavior when betrayal is obfuscated to an identical monetary payoffs situation where betrayal is revealed. We find that more trustees choose to defect in our experiment when betrayal is obfuscated than when it is revealed. Our result suggests that concern for betrayal costs influences not only the decision to trust but also the decision to repay trust.

Keywords: Experiments; Betrayal Cost; Trust; Cooperation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10
Date: 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Do I care if you know I betrayed you? (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:exc:wpaper:2012-14

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