In a laboratory experiment, we use an extensive form two person trust game to examine the hypothesis that human subjects have a preconscious friend-or-foe (FOF) mental mechanism for evaluating the intentions of another person. Instructions are used to weakly prime the FOF state: instead of the...

The relationship between trust and risk is a topic of enduring interest. Although there are substantial differences between the ideas the terms express, many researchers from different disciplines have pointed out that these two concepts become very closely related in personal exchange contexts....

In randomized control laboratory experiments, we find that those primed to think about markets exhibit more trusting behavior. We randomly and unconsciously prime experimental participants to think about markets and trade. We then ask them to play a trust game involving an anonymous stranger. We...

Why is it so hard to get opposing elites to work together rather than to seek partisan gains and/or political survival? While the credible commitment problem is widely known, there are a number of lesser known obstacles to building trust and trust worthiness between opposing elites. This article...