Can you trust the good guys? Trust within and between groups with different missions

Sebastian Fehrler and Michael Kosfeld

Economics Letters, 2013, vol. 121, issue 3, 400-404

Abstract: Non-governmental organizations and other non-profit organizations attract workers who strongly identify themselves with their missions. We study whether these “good guys” are more trustworthy, and how such pronounced group identities affect trust and trustworthiness within the groups and towards out-groups. We find that subjects who strongly identify themselves with a non-profit mission are more trustworthy in a minimal group setting but also harshly discriminate against out-groups when subjects are grouped by the missions they identify themselves with.

Keywords: Social identity theory; Group identity; Trust; Trustworthiness; Discrimination; Organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C92 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517651300414X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Can You Trust the Good Guys? Trust Within and Between Groups with Different Missions (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:121:y:2013:i:3:p:400-404

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2013.09.007

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().