Abstract
We studied how communication media affect trust game play. Three popular media were considered: traditional face-to-face, Facebook groups, and anonymous online chat. We considered post-communication changes in players’ expectations and preferences, and further analyzed the contents of group communications to understand the channels though which communication appears to improve trust and trustworthiness. For senders, the social, emotional, and game-relevant contents of communication all matter, significantly influencing both their expectations of fair return and preferences towards receivers. Receivers increased trustworthiness is mostly explained by their adherence to the norm of sending back a fair share of the amount received. These results do not qualitatively differ among the three communication media; while face-to-face had the largest volume of messages, all three media proved equally effective in enhancing trust and trustworthiness.
Highlights
We see that all forms of group communication increased the amount sent and did not change or increased
We focus on regression specifications (1), (3), and (5), which estimate sender expected return and probability of expecting fair return on part and treatment variables, as well as Facebook use demographics. (Regression specifications (2), (4), and (6) that include communication contents as explanatory variables will be discussed in Section 4 below.) We find that the expected percentage returned did not significantly change from Part 1 to Part 3 under No Communication; in contrast, it increased after communication under all three communication treatments, with the increase being positive and significant for all three treatments under most specifications
We present an experiment that considers how communications under different popular media affect trust game play through player expectations and preferences
Summary
‘More than two-thirds of teens say they would rather communicate with their friends online than in person’—The Wall Street Journal, 10 September 20181. We considered three communication media that are commonly used in everyday life: face-to-face communication, communication via Facebook, and communication via anonymous online chat, and compared their effectiveness in enhancing trust and trustworthiness. These media differ in the degree of anonymity and the richness of available communication channels. As promises in dyadic communications are known to enhance trustworthy behavior [24], we considered the role of sender and receiver promises and group agreements on coordinating beliefs and actions in the trust game. Communication content had no significant association with receiver trustworthiness
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