What happens if you single out? An experiment

Abstract

We present an experiment investigating the effects of singling out an individual on trust and trustworthiness. We find that (a) trustworthiness falls if there is a singled out subject; (b) non-singled out subjects discriminate against the singled out subject when they are not responsible of the distinct status of this person; (c) under a negative frame, the singled out subject returns significantly less; (d) under a positive frame, the singled out subject behaves bimodally, either selecting very low or very high return rates. Overall, singling out induces a negligible effect on trust but is potentially disruptive for trustworthiness