Whom do you distrust and how much does it cost? An experiment on the measurement of trust

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: McEvily, Bill; Radzevick, Joseph R.; Weber, Roberto A.
• 署名单位: University of Zurich; University of Toronto; Gettysburg College
• 刊物名称: GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0899-8256
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2011.06.011
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 285-298
• 关键词: trust; trustworthiness; altruism; experiment

摘要

We advance the measurement of trust in economics in two ways. First, we highlight the importance of clearly identifying the target of trust, particularly for obtaining concordance between attitudinal and behavioral measures of trust. Second, we introduce a novel behavioral measure of (dis)trust, based on individuals' willingness to pay to avoid being vulnerable to the target of trust. We conduct an experiment in which we vary the target of trust among passersby at several locations around a city, measuring both behavioral distrust and trust attitudes towards these varying targets. We find that subjects discriminate based on perceived characteristics of different targets in determining whether to trust, in a manner consistent with trust elicited using attitudinal measures and with actual trustworthiness. Risk aversion and altruism do not correlate highly with our measure of distrust. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.