Promises and Partnership

Preprint
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
  • 1 January 2004
    • preprint
      • Published in RePEc
Abstract
We examine experimentally the impact of communication on trust and cooperation. Our design admits observation of promises, lies, and beliefs. The evidence is consistent with people striving to live up to others' expectations so as to avoid guilt, as can be modeled using psychological game theory. When players exhibit such guilt aversion, communication may influence motivation and behavior by influencing beliefs about beliefs. Promises may enhance trustworthy behavior, which is what we observe. We argue that guilt aversion may be relevant for understanding strategic interaction in a variety of settings, and that it may shed light on the role of language, discussions, agreements, and social norms in these contexts. Copyright The Econometric Society 2006. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: