Social and strategic ambiguity versus betrayal aversion

This paper examines the difference between strategic ambiguity as in game theory and ambiguity arising in individual decisions. We identify a new, non-strategic component underlying all strategic ambiguities, called social ambiguity. We recommend controlling for it to better identify strategic causes. Thus, we shed new light on Bohnet and Zeckhauser's betrayal aversion in the trust game. We first show theoretically that, contrary to preceding claims in the literature, ambiguity attitudes can play a role here. We then show experimentally that social ambiguity, rather than betrayal aversion, can explain our empirical findings. Using our new control, we identify the unique effect of strategic ambiguity. Strategic complexity increases ambiguity perception and thus increases people's likelihood insensitivity when making decisions under strategic ambiguity. Our results show the usefulness of controlling for ambiguity attitudes before speculating on strategic factors

Nonverbal content and trust: An experiment on digital communication

International audienceWe experimentally study the eect of the mode of digital communication on the emergence of trust in a principal-agent relationship. We consider three modes of communication that dier in the capacity to transmit nonverbal content: plain text, audio, and video. Communication is pre-play, one-way, and unrestricted, but its verbal content is homogenized across treatments. Overall, both audio and video messages have a positive (and similar) eect on trust as compared to plain text; however, the magnitude of these eects depends on the verbal content of agent's message (promise to act trustworthily vs. no such promise). In all conditions, we observe a positive eect of the agent's promise on the principal's trust. We also report that trust in female principals is sensitive to the availability of nonverbal cues about their partners