An experimental investigation of trusting behaviour

In this paper, we present the results of an experiment conducted in Italy on trusting behaviour. Our subjects participated in a trust game and filled in a questionnaire on trust and trustworthiness based on the attitudinal questions reported in the European Value Survey. The aims of the research are twofold. Firstly, using the experimental dataset, we construct two measures of trustworthiness among all recipients in the experiment, one based on the questionnaires’ answers and another based on the strategy method. We then compare the ex-ante behavioural decision to trust (before participants are allocated to a group) with the ex-post decision to trust (after participants are allocated to a group and trustors are informed of the level of trustworthiness of all the recipients who have been randomly allocated to each group). Our main finding is that trust strongly varies once the information is disclosed to trustors. The effect on trust is greater when the strategy method is used. Secondly, we compare the behavioural measure of trust with the attitudinal measures of trust and trustworthiness and find that there is only a weak correlation between the two measures, thus confirming, for the Italian case, similar findings in country-based studies on trust.