Trust and Reactions to Messages of Intent in Social Dilemmas

Abstract

This study examined how low- and high-trust individuals react to messages of intended behavior in a social dilemma situation. Subjects played a two-person prisoner's dilemma; the opponent was a reciprocal strategy programmed by the experimenter. During the game, subjects received a message stating that the opponent planned to be cooperative or competitive for the remainder of the game. In Study 1, low trusters reacted to the competitive message by decreasing cooperation but were unaffected by the cooperative message; high trusters reacted to the cooperative message by increasing cooperation but were unaffected by the competitive message. Study 2 showed that a period of unconditional, message-consistent behavior immediately after the message can make low and high trusters responsive to cooperative and competitive messages, respectively. However, the number of unconditional responses was crucial. The study also found that stated intention and message-inconsistent behavior affect perceptions of the opponent's trustworthiness.