Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding Trust through Higher-Order Beliefs

该奖项资助了一系列决策实验，这些实验将检验关于经济关系中信任来源的特定理论。coPI为最近的研究做出了贡献，该研究利用博弈论来检验信任是否是一种理性决策。他提出了一个理论，即一个人在决定是否信任一个经济伙伴时，会考虑这个伙伴是否在乎被认为值得信任。结果是一个新的二元信任博弈，可以用来研究参与者的高阶信念的可控变化是否以及如何影响他们的决策。该设计的一个关键创新是在两个参与者的节点之间引入随机移动，这影响了将发送方的投资决定解释为纯粹的信任行为。控制实验室实验用于测试当发件人的决定更容易被解释为信任的标志时，他/她是否更有可能投资。这项研究有助于我们理解经济关系中信任的行为来源。由于贸易伙伴之间的信任在许多经济情况下是关键，了解如何培养适当的信任可能会产生更广泛的影响。当市场设计者利用新的见解来鼓励个人进行投资时，这些影响就会出现。

This award funds a series of decision making experiments that will test a specific theory about the sources of trust in economic relationships. The coPI has contributed to recent research that uses game theory to examine whether trust is a rational decision. He has developed a theory in which a person who is deciding whether or not to trust an economic partner considers whether or not the partner cares about being considered trustworthy. The result is a new binary trust game that can be used to investigate whether and how controlled variations in participants' higher order beliefs may affect their decisions. A key innovation of the design is the introduction of a random move between the two participants' nodes which affects the interpretation of the Sender's decision to invest as a pure act of trust. Controlled lab experiments are used to test whether or not the Sender is more likely to invest when his/her decision is more easily interpretable as a sign of trust.This research contributes to our understanding of the behavioral sources of trust in economic relationships. Because trust between trading partners is key in many economic situations, understanding how to foster appropriate trust is likely to result in broader impact. These impacts will come as market designers employ the new insights to encourage individuals to make investments.