Testing the causes of betrayal aversion

Steven J. Humphrey and Stefan Mondorf

Economics Letters, 2021, vol. 198, issue C

Abstract: Betrayal–aversion is the observation that decision-makers in a trust situation are more averse to uncertainty when it derives from the unknown behavior of others than when it derives from nature. This effect has been attributed to the anticipated disutility of discovering that trust placed in another person has been betrayed. We report new experimental results which suggest a different interpretation of some of the extant data. We observe that a role is played by the reluctance to give-up decision rights to another person, even when that person cannot deliberately betray their trustor. We find treatment effects only for males. Loss-aversion does not explain our data.

Keywords: Betrayal-aversion; Decision rights; Loss-aversion; Gender effects; Risky dictator game; Trust game; Risky dis-coordination game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C91 D81 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:198:y:2021:i:c:s0165176520304237

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109663

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