The role of social emotions in trust and co-operation
Tom Ellor
Cardiff University
The primary aim of this proposed experiment will be
to uncover the conditions that promote fairness, trust and co-operation in
social behaviour. Participants will complete a web-based experiment involving
two simple games – the ‘dictator’ game and the ‘trust’ game. The ‘dictator’
game involves a ‘proposer’ who receives a set of money and is free to
distribute the money between themselves and another player, a ‘receiver’. The
‘trust’ game involves a participant sending money to another player, the money
is then tripled, and the initial ‘receiver’ then redistributes the money. We
predict the results will show that the more the participant trusts the other
player to distribute the money back, the more money that will be given in the
initial round, thus displaying cooperation. The implications for this will be
discussed.
