Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an evolutionary approach
People often form expectations about others using the lens of their own attitudes (the so-called consensus effect). We study the implications of this for trust and trustworthiness in an evolutionary model where social preferences are endogenous. Trustworthy individuals are more "optimistic"...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2015
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28841/ |
| _version_ | 1848793655355113472 |
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| author | Adriani, Fabrizio Sonderegger, Silvia |
| author_facet | Adriani, Fabrizio Sonderegger, Silvia |
| author_sort | Adriani, Fabrizio |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | People often form expectations about others using the lens of their own attitudes (the so-called consensus effect). We study the implications of this for trust and trustworthiness in an evolutionary model where social preferences are endogenous. Trustworthy individuals are more "optimistic" than opportunists and are accordingly less afraid to engage in market-based exchanges, where they may be vulnerable to cheating. Depending on the distribution of social preferences in the population, the material benefits from greater participation may compensate for the costs of being trustworthy. By providing an explicit account of how individuals form and revise their beliefs, we are able to show the existence of a polymorphic equilibrium where both trustworthiness and opportunism coexist in the population. We also analyze the effect of enforcement, distinguishing between its role as deterrence of future misbehavior and as retribution for past misbehavior. We show that enforcement aimed at deterring opportunistic behavior has ambiguous effects on social preferences. It may favor the spreading of trustworthiness (crowding in), but the opposite (crowding out) may also occur. By contrast, crowding out never occur when punishment is merely intended as retribution. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:03:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-28841 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:03:45Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-288412017-10-15T14:15:38Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28841/ Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an evolutionary approach Adriani, Fabrizio Sonderegger, Silvia People often form expectations about others using the lens of their own attitudes (the so-called consensus effect). We study the implications of this for trust and trustworthiness in an evolutionary model where social preferences are endogenous. Trustworthy individuals are more "optimistic" than opportunists and are accordingly less afraid to engage in market-based exchanges, where they may be vulnerable to cheating. Depending on the distribution of social preferences in the population, the material benefits from greater participation may compensate for the costs of being trustworthy. By providing an explicit account of how individuals form and revise their beliefs, we are able to show the existence of a polymorphic equilibrium where both trustworthiness and opportunism coexist in the population. We also analyze the effect of enforcement, distinguishing between its role as deterrence of future misbehavior and as retribution for past misbehavior. We show that enforcement aimed at deterring opportunistic behavior has ambiguous effects on social preferences. It may favor the spreading of trustworthiness (crowding in), but the opposite (crowding out) may also occur. By contrast, crowding out never occur when punishment is merely intended as retribution. Elsevier 2015-07 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en cc_by_nc_nd https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28841/1/EER_final4.pdf Adriani, Fabrizio and Sonderegger, Silvia (2015) Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an evolutionary approach. European Economic Review, 77 . pp. 102-116. ISSN 0014-2921 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292115000598 doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.04.003 doi:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.04.003 |
| spellingShingle | Adriani, Fabrizio Sonderegger, Silvia Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an evolutionary approach |
| title | Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an
evolutionary approach |
| title_full | Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an
evolutionary approach |
| title_fullStr | Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an
evolutionary approach |
| title_full_unstemmed | Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an
evolutionary approach |
| title_short | Trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an
evolutionary approach |
| title_sort | trust, trustworthiness and the consensus effect: an
evolutionary approach |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28841/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28841/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28841/ |