Can Observers Predict Trustworthiness?

Abstract We investigate whether experimental subjects can predict behavior in a prisoner's dilemma played on a TV show. Subjects report probabilistic beliefs that a player cooperates, before and after the players communicate. Subjects correctly predict that women and players who make a voluntary promise are more likely to cooperate. They are able to distinguish truth from lies when a player is asked about her intentions by the host. Subjects are to some extent able to predict behavior; their beliefs are 7~percentage points higher for cooperators than for defectors. We also study their Bayesian updating. Beliefs do not satisfy the martingale property and display mean reversion.

[1]  Robyn M. Dawes,et al.  Behavior, communication, and assumptions about other people's behavior in a commons dilemma situation. , 1977 .

[2]  E. Fehr.  A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Cooperation , 1998 .

[3]  A. Tversky,et al.  The weighing of evidence and the determinants of confidence , 1992, Cognitive Psychology.

[4]  Gary Charness,et al.  When Optimal Choices Feel Wrong: A Laboratory Study of Bayesian Updating, Complexity, and Affect , 2004 .

[5]  Joel L. Schrag,et al.  First Impressions Matter: A Model of Confirmatory Bias , 1999 .

[6]  R. Frank,et al.  The evolution of one-shot cooperation: An experiment , 1993 .

[7]  Bhaskar,et al.  A Public Dilemma: Cooperation with Large Stakes and a Large Audience , 2006 .

[8]  Bernd Irlenbusch,et al.  Fooling the Nice Guys: The effect of lying about contributions on public good provision and punishment , 2012 .

[9]  D. M. Grether,et al.  Bayes Rule as a Descriptive Model: The Representativeness Heuristic , 1980 .

[10]  Gary E. Bolton,et al.  ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition , 2000 .

[11]  Martin Dufwenberg,et al.  Promises and Partnership , 2006 .

[12]  Martin Dufwenberg,et al.  Broken Promises: An Experiment , 2007 .

[13]  Andrei Shleifer,et al.  Trust in Large Organizations , 1996 .

[14]  S. Frederick.  Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 19, Number 4—Fall 2005—Pages 25–42 Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making , 2022 .

[15]  Ray Bull,et al.  Detecting true lies: police officers' ability to detect suspects' lies. , 2004, The Journal of applied psychology.

[16]  R. Costanza,et al.  The evolution of preferences Why 'sovereign' preferences may not lead to sustainable policies and what to do about it , 1998 .

[17]  J. Sonnemans,et al.  A Truth Serum for Non-Bayesians: Correcting Proper Scoring Rules for Risk Attitudes* , 2009 .

[18]  J. Sivacek,et al.  Predictions of others' responses in a mixed-motive game: Self-justification or false consensus? , 1979 .

[19]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[20]  Uri Gneezy,et al.  Deception: The Role of Consequences , 2005 .

[21]  P. Ekman,et al.  Who can catch a liar? , 1991, The American psychologist.

[22]  P. Ekman.  Telling lies: clues to deceit in the marketplace , 1985 .

[23]  M. Schlossberg.  Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions. , 1990 .

[24]  Richard H. Thaler,et al.  Do Security Analysts Overreact , 1990 .

[25]  L. Ross,et al.  Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence , 1979 .

[26]  R. Kraut,et al.  Behavioral roots of person perception: The deception judgments of customs inspectors and laymen. , 1980 .

[27]  P. Ekman,et al.  Detecting deception from the body or face. , 1974 .

[28]  David N. Laband,et al.  An Estimate of Resource Expenditures on Transfer Activity in the United States , 1992 .

[29]  David F. Sally.  Conversation and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas , 1995 .

[30]  Jeffrey C. Ely,et al.  Evolution of Preferences , 2007 .

[31]  P. Ekman,et al.  The ability to detect deceit generalizes across different types of high-stake lies. , 1997, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  J. Brosig.  Identifying cooperative behavior: some experimental results in a prisoner's dilemma game , 2002 .

[33]  C. F. Bond,et al.  Deceiving and Detecting Deceit , 2013 .

[34]  Jeffrey C. Ely,et al.  Evolution of Preferences1 , 2007 .

[35]  L. Festinger,et al.  A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance , 2017 .

[36]  Jeroen van de Ven,et al.  Promises and cooperation: Evidence from a TV game show , 2010 .

[37]  M. El-Gamal,et al.  Are People Bayesian? Uncovering Behavioral Strategies , 1995 .

[38]  Leon G. Higley,et al.  Forensic Entomology: An Introduction , 2009 .

[39]  Jerry Weiss.  Ekman, P. (2009) Telling Lies : Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage. New York: Norton , 2011 .

[40]  Michèle Belot,et al.  Beauty and the Sources of Discrimination , 2008, The Journal of Human Resources.

[41]  A Within-Subject Analysis of Other-Regarding Preferences , 2010 .

[42]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[43]  Stephen F. Knack,et al.  Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation , 1997 .

[44]  Alexander K. Koch,et al.  Belief elicitation in experiments: is there a hedging problem? , 2010 .

[45]  Axel Ockenfels,et al.  An Experiment on the Hypothesis of Involuntary Truth-Signalling in Bargaining , 2000, Games Econ. Behav..

[46]  M. Rabin,et al.  UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL PREFERENCES WITH SIMPLE TESTS , 2001 .

[47]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  Calibration of Probabilities: The State of the Art , 1977 .

[48]  J. Burgoon,et al.  Nonverbal Communication , 2018, Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science.

[49]  Eric Schniter,et al.  Recalibrational Emotions and the Regulation of Trust-Based Behaviors , 2013 .

[50]  G. Gurevich,et al.  The Manipulation: Socio-economic decision making , 2013 .

[51]  Edward,et al.  Measuring Trust , 2000 .

[52]  Hans-Theo Normann,et al.  A Within-Subject Analysis of Other-Regarding Preferences , 2010, Games Econ. Behav..

[53]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Calibration of probabilities: the state of the art to 1980 , 1982 .

[54]  Bruno Biais,et al.  Judgmental Overconfidence, Self-Monitoring and Trading Performance in an Experimental Financial Market , 2005 .

[55]  David A. Anderson,et al.  The Aggregate Burden of Crime , 1999 .

[56]  Martin Dufwenberg,et al.  Bare promises: An experiment , 2010 .

[57]  Bernd Irlenbusch,et al.  Fooling the Nice Guys: Explaining receiver credulity in a public good game with lying and punishment , 2013 .

[58]  Belief Elicitation in Experiments: Is There a Hedging Problem? , 2010 .

[59]  Colin F. Camerer,et al.  Pinocchio's Pupil: Using Eyetracking and Pupil Dilation To Understand Truth-telling and Deception in Games , 2006 .

[60]  Colin Camerer.  Do Biases in Probability Judgment Matter in Markets? Experimental Evidence , 1987 .

[61]  Paul Ekman,et al.  A Few Can Catch a Liar , 1999 .

[62]  U. Witt.  Explaining process and change : approaches to evolutionary economics , 1992 .