What is trustworthiness and what drives it?

James Cox, Rudolf Kerschbamer and Daniel Neururer ()

Working Papers from Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck

Abstract: This paper reports the results of experiments designed to isolate the impact of various combinations of the following motives on trustworthiness: (i) unconditional other-regarding preferences - like altruism, inequality aversion, quasi-maximin, etc.; (ii) deal-responsiveness - reacting to actions that allow for a mutual improvement by adopting behavior that implies a mutual improvement; (iii) gift-responsiveness - reacting to choices that allow the trustee to obtain an improvement by adopting actions that benefit the trustor; and (iv) vulnerability-responsiveness - reacting to the vulnerability of the trustor by adopting actions that do not hurt the trustor. Our results indicate that - besides unconditional other-regarding preferences - vulnerability-responsiveness is an important determinant of trustworthiness even in cases where the vulnerability of the trustor does not come together with a gift to the trustee. Motivated by our empirical findings we provide formal definitions of trust and trustworthiness based on revealed willingness to accept vulnerability and the response to it.

Keywords: trustworthiness; trust; trust game; investment game; deal-responsiveness; gift-responsiveness; vulnerability-responsiveness; generosity; reciprocity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C91 D63 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2014-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-exp, nep-gth, nep-hpe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: What is trustworthiness and what drives it? (2016)
Working Paper: What is Trustworthiness and What Drives It? (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inn:wpaper:2014-23

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