The role of communication content and reputation in the choice of transaction partners: A study based on field and laboratory data

We study the effects of communication content and its interaction with reputation on the choice of transaction partners in markets with moral hazard. We find that buyers' choices of sellers are influenced by prices and reputation information as well as by sellers' messages: buyers prefer sellers who make specific promises. If specific promises are infeasible, buyers prefer sellers whose arguments reduce the social distance. These observations do not depend on the availability of reputation information. We also find that, if specific promises are feasible, buyers' profits do not significantly differ from hypothetical profits realized under a correct expectations rule

Strategic incentives undermine gaze as a signal of prosocial motives

People often have to judge the social motives of others, for example, to distinguish truly prosocial people from those merely trying to appear prosocial. Gaze can reveal the motives underlying social decisions, as decision-makers dedicate more attention to motive-relevant information. We extend the use of eye-tracking and apply it as a communication device by providing (real-time) eye-tracking information of one participant to another. We find that untrained observers can judge the prosociality of decision-makers from their eye-tracked gaze alone, but only if there are no strategic incentives to be chosen for a future interaction. When there are such strategic incentives, the cues of prosociality are invalidated, as both individualistic and prosocial decision-makers put effort into appearing more prosocial. Overall, we find that gaze carries information about a person's prosociality, but also that gaze is malleable and affected by strategic considerations

Bilateral communication in procurement auctions

We ask how buyers can make use of bilateral communication in a procurement setting with moral hazard. We focus on a setting where buyers and potential sellers can exchange cheap-talk messages before trading and where the seller is determined via a buyer-determined procurement auction. In this type of auction, buyers can freely choose among bidders based on bidders’ observable characteristics and the prices they ask for. In a controlled laboratory experiment, we find that buyers use free-form text messages to make requests and to reduce social distance. The relationship between the offers sellers make and the messages they send is mediated by buyers’ requests. But, in general, buyers may increase their profits by choosing sellers who promise high quality or large profits. Furthermore, despite the cheap-talk nature of requests, buyers in our experiment increase their profits by specifically demanding high quality or large profits

Decision-making in social systems: injustice, inequality, and ignorance

I present three studies exploring decision-making in artificial social systems that provide insight on the situational factors and individual differences relevant to political engagement. Studies 1 and 2 aimed to provide insight, using a value-expectancy approach, into the dynamics of individual and group opposition to systemically unfair social contexts. Participants were placed in live interactive groups that highlighted a “class difference” between “Elite” and non-Elite participants. Non-Elite participants made incentive-based decisions to support or challenge the system. In Study 1, I found that individuals were more likely to challenge the system when acting in a group compared to when acting alone. This result was accompanied by greater feelings of efficacy when in a group, but only when participants strongly identified with one another. In Study 2, I showed that efforts to challenge the system were undermined by the opportunity to freeride only when the class difference was not emphasised; when the difference between Elites and Non-Elites was salient, participants were no less likely to challenge when freeriding was possible compared to when it was not. In both studies, the availability of coordinating information reduced the relevance of social identity in moderating feelings of efficacy. These findings add to the literature on collective action by experimentally demonstrating when mobilisation is more likely. Study 3 aimed to explore the extent to which individuals are motivated to discover whether their immediate social context is fair or unfair, and what individual difference traits predict these decisions. Participants completed a task in pairs and were subsequently made aware of the possibility they had been paid differently to their partner. Participants could discover whether payments were unfair or remain in ignorance. The results showed that several individual differences were important for this decision. The most compelling was System Justification, which had a complex influence on participants’ comfort not knowing and whether they chose to seek information. Taken together, the thesis contributes empirical data to an understanding of the attitudes and behaviour of constituents of (potentially) unjust social systems

The Sources of the Communication Gap

Face-to-face communication drastically increases cooperation rates in social dilemmas. We test which factors are the most important drivers of this communication gap. We distinguish three main categories. First, communication may decrease social distance. Second, communication may enable subjects to assess their opponent’s cooperativeness (“type detection”) and condition their own action on that information. Third, communication allows subjects to make promises, which create commitment for subjects who do not want to break a promise. We find that communication increases cooperation very substantially. In our experiment, we find that commitment value is an important factor, but the largest part of the increase can be attributed to type detection. We do not find evidence that social distance plays a role