The medium or the message?

communication relevance and richness in trust games

Cristina Bicchieri

Azi Lev-On

Alex Chavez

pp. 125-147

in: Paul Weirich (ed), Realistic standards for decisions, Synthese 176 (1), 2010.

Abstract

Subjects communicated prior to playing trust games; the richness of the communication media and the topics of conversation were manipulated. Communication richness failed to produce significant differences in first-mover investments. However, the topics of conversation made a significant difference: the amounts sent were considerably higher in the unrestricted communication conditions than in the restricted communication and no-communication conditions. Most importantly, we find that first-movers’ expectations of second-movers’ reciprocation are influenced by communication and strongly predict their levels of investment.