Can Observers Predict Trustworthiness?

We investigate whether experimental subjects can predict behavior in a prisoner's dilemma played on a TV show. Subjects report probabilistic beliefs that a player cooperates, before and after the players communicate. Subjects correctly predict that women and players who make a voluntary promise are more likely to cooperate. They are able to distinguish truth from lies when a player is asked about her intentions by the host. Subjects are to some extent able to predict behavior; their beliefs are 7~percentage points higher for cooperators than for defectors. We also study their Bayesian updating. Beliefs do not satisfy the martingale property and display mean reversion. © 2011 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.