Many economic interactions rely on trust, which is sometimes violated. The fallout from business fraud and other malfeasance shows serious economic consequences of trust violations. Simple rules mandating minimum standards are attractive because they prevent the most egregious trust violations....

Using trust games, we study how promises and messages are used to build new trust where it did not previously exist and to rebuild damaged trust. In these games, trustees made non-binding promises of investment-contingent returns, then investors decided whether to invest, and finally trustees...

Despite normative predictions from economics and biology, unrelated strangers will often develop the trust necessary to reap gains from one-shot economic exchange opportunities. This appears to be especially true when declared intentions and emotions can be cheaply communicated. Perhaps even...

We observed reports of conflicted (concurrent positive and negative) emotions activated after interactions in the Trust game. Our analyses reveal that activation of 20 emotional states following trust-based interaction is better explained by predictions derived from a multi-dimensional...

Many economic interactions are characterized by “all-or-nothing” action spaces that may limit the demonstrability of intended trust. We investigate whether restricting investment opportunities to all-or-nothing options affects the investment rate and propensity to reciprocate. We do this by...