Feedback and emotions in the trust game

We conduct an experiment on the impact of feedback in the Trust Game. In our treatment group, the Trustee has the opportunity to give feedback to the Investor (free in choice of wording and contents). The feedback option is found to reduce the share of Investors who sent no resources to the Trustee, while the impact on average behavior is less pronounced. The notion proposed by Xiao and Houser (2005, PNAS) according to which verbal feedback and monetary sanctions are substitutes is not supported. We use the PANAS-scale (Mackinnon et al., 1999) to capture change in subjects' short-run affective state during the experiment. Receiving feedback has an impact on the Investors' short-run affective state but giving feedback is not found to have an effect on Trustees' short-run affective state.