Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-7g5wt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-17T00:05:59.463Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Incremental approaches to establishing trust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Robert Kurzban ,
Mary L. Rigdon  and
Bart J. Wilson
Robert Kurzban*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 3720 Walnut St., Philadelphia, USA
Mary L. Rigdon*
Affiliation:
Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan, 426 Thompson St., 48106 Ann Arbor, USA
Bart J. Wilson*
Affiliation:
Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, MSN 1B2, 22030 Fairfax, USA
*
e-mail: kurzban@psych.upenn.edu
e-mail: mrigdon@umich.edu
e-mail: bwilson3@gmu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We investigate cooperation using an incremental investment game in which the first-mover has the ability to make small, but increasing incremental investments in their counterpart. Our experiment is designed to test whether establishing trust in small increments is more effective than alternatives, including a one-shot investment game, a decrease only condition where the amount the first-mover sends to the second-mover must be less than the amount previously sent, and an unrestricted condition where the first-mover is not restricted by the amount previously sent. Although results were mixed, broadly, iteration affords greater cooperation than one-shot games and, when given the choice, participants seem to prefer to build trust gradually. Implications for institutional design are discussed.

Keywords

Investment gameTrustReciprocityBargainingCooperationExperimental economics

JEL classification

C91: Laboratory, Individual Behavior C72: Noncooperative Games
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 2008 , pp. 370 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreoni, J., & Samuelson, L. (2006). Building rational cooperation. Journal of Economic Theory, 127, 117–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Berg, J., Dickhaut, J., & McCabe, K. (1995). Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behavior, 10(1), 122–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blonski, M., & Probst, D. (2004). The emergence of trust (Working Paper). University of Mannheim.Google Scholar
Bohnet, I., & Zeckhauser, R. (2004). Trust, risk, and betrayal. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 55(4), 467–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohnet, I., Hermann, B., & Zeckhauser, R. (2005). The elasticity of trust: Evidence from Kuwait, Oman, Switzerland, The United Arab Emirate, and the United States (Working Paper). Harvard University.Google Scholar
Bolton, G., Katok, E., & Ockenfels, A. (2003). How effective are electronic reputation mechanisms? An experimental investigation (Working Paper). University of Cologne.Google Scholar
Buchan, N., & Croson, R. (2004). The boundaries of trust: Own and others’ actions in the US and China. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 55(4), 485–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, C. (2003). Behavioral game theory: Experiments in strategic interaction. New York: Sage.Google Scholar
Carpenter, J., Burks, S., & Verhoogen, E. (2005). Comparing students to workers: The effects of social framing on behavior in distribution games. In Carpenter, J., List, J. & Harrison, G. (Eds.), Research in experimental economics. Field experiments in economics (pp. 261–290).Google Scholar
Choi, S., Gale, D., & Kariv, S. (2006). Sequential equilibrium in monotone games: Theory-based analysis of experimental data (Working Paper). New York University.Google Scholar
Croson, R., & Buchan, N. (1999). Gender and culture: International experimental evidence from trust games. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 89, 386–391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorsey, R. E. (1992). The voluntary contributions mechanism with real time revisions. Public Choice, 73, 261–282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffy, J., Ochs, J., & Vesterlund, L. (2006). Giving little by little: Dynamic voluntary contribution games (Working Paper 232). University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Dufwenberg, M., & Kirchsteiger, G. (2004). A theory of sequential reciprocity. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 47(2), 268–298.Google Scholar
Eckel, C., & Wilson, R. (2003). The human face of game theory: Trust and reciprocity in sequential games. In Ostrom, E. & Walker, J. (Eds.), Trust and reciprocity: Interdisciplinary lessons from experimental research (pp. 245–274). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Falk, A., & Fischbacher, U. (2006). A theory of reciprocity. Games and Economic Behavior, 54, 293–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehr, E., & Schmidt, K. M. (1999). A theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(3), 817–868.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, R., Gilovich, T., & Regan, D. (1993). The evolution of one-shot cooperation. Ethology and Sociobiology, 14, 247–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, J. W., & Hammerstein, P. (1991). To trade or not to trade; That is the question. In Selten, R. (Ed.), Game equilibrium models. I. Evolution and game dynamics (pp. 257–275). Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gale, D. (1995). Dynamic coordination games. Economic Theory, 5, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gale, D. (2001). Monotone games with positive spillovers. Games and Economic Behavior, 37, 295–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Gintis, H., Fehr, E., Camerer, C., McElreath, R., Gurven, M., Hill, K., Barr, A., Ensminger, J., Tracer, D., Marlow, F., Patton, J., Alvard, M., Gil-White, F., & Henrich, N. (2005). Economic Man’ in cross-cultural perspective: Ethnography and experiments from 15 small- scale societies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(6), 795–815.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holm, H., & Danielson, A. (2005). Tropic versus Nordic trust: Experimental evidence from Tanzania and Sweden. The Economic Journal, 115, 505–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishii, K., & Kurzban, R. (2007, in press). Public goods games in Japan: Cultural and individual differences in reciprocity. Human Nature: An Interdisciplinary Biosocial Perspective.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurzban, R., & Houser, D. (2005). Experiments investigating cooperative types in humans: A complement to evolutionary theory and simulations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 102(5), 1803–1807.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurzban, R., McCabe, K., Smith, V., & Wilson, B. J. (2001). Incremental commitment and reciprocity in a real-time public goods game. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(12), 1662–1673.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laffont, J. J., & Tirole, J. (1988). The dynamics of incentive contracts. Econometrica, 56(5), 1153–1175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewicki, R. J., & Bunker, B. B. (1996). Developing and maintaining trust in work relationships. In Kramer, R. M. & Tyler, T. R. (Eds.), Trust in organizations: Frontiers in theory and research (pp. 114–139). Thousand Oaks: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindskold, S. (1978). Trust development, the GRIT proposal and the effects of conciliatory acts on conflict and cooperation. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 772–793.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, L., & Matthews, S. (2000). Dynamic voluntary contribution to a public project. Review of Economic Studies, 67, 327–358.Google Scholar
McCabe, K., Rigdon, M., & Smith, V. (2002). Cooperation in single play, two-person extensive form games between anonymously matched decision makers. In Zwick, R. & Rapoport, A. (Eds.), Experimental Business Research (pp. 49–67). Boston: Kluwer Academic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCabe, K., Rigdon, M., & Smith, V. (2003). Positive reciprocity and intentions in trust games. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 52(2), 267–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, J., & Repullo, R. (1988). Subgame perfect implementation. Econometrica, 56(5), 1191–1220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, D. C. (1981). Structure and change in economic history. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (2005). Understanding the process of economic change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortmann, A., Fitzgerald, J., & Boeing, C. (2000). Trust, reciprocity, and social history: A re-examination. Experimental Economics, 3, 81–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osgood, C. E. (1962). An alternative to war or surrender. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Pillutla, M. M., Malhotra, D., & Murnighan, K. (2003). Attributions of trust and the calculus of reciprocity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 448–455.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitchford, R., & Snyder, C. M. (2004). A solution to the hold-up problem involving gradual investment. Journal of Economic Theory, 14, 88–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapoport, A., Stein, W., Parco, J., & Nicholas, T. (2003). Equilibrium play and adaptive learning in a three-person centipede game. Games and Economic Behavior, 43, 239–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rempel, J. K., Holmes, J. G., & Zanna, M. P. (1985). Trust in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 95–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, G., & Renwick, J. S. (2003). The development of cooperative relationships: An experiment. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 270, 2279–2283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, G., & Sheratt, T. N. (1998). Development of cooperative relationships through increasing investment. Nature, 394, 175–179.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schelling, T. (1960). The strategy of conflict. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Slonim, R., Engle-Warnick, J., & Helper, S. (2001). Context in repeated trust games (Working Paper). Case Western Reserve.Google Scholar
Smith, V. (1991). Papers in experimental economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Watson, J. (2002). Starting small and commitment. Games and Economic Behavior, 38(1), 176–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, J.M., Malhotra, D., & Murninghan, J.K. (2004). Normal acts of irrational trust: Motivated attributions and the trust development process. In Kramer, R. M. & Staw, B. (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 75–101). London: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Yamagishi, T. (2003). Cross-societal experimentation on trust: A comparison of the United States and Japan. In Ostrom, E. & Walker, J. (Eds.), Trust and reciprocity: Interdisciplinary lessons from experimental research (pp. 352–370). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Zak, P. J., & Knack, S. (2001). Trust and growth. Economic Journal, 111(470), 295–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar