Reciprocity Study Based On Subjective Intention And Objective Outcome:Evidence From Noisy Trust Games

Trust and the reciprocity to the trust are indispensable parts to construct harmony society.But in our everyday life,it is not always stable or genuine to express an intention of trust.When a receiver meets an outcome caused by a sender,the subjective intention behind the result does not always have the identical valence to this objective outcome.If the outcome can’t correctly transfer the intention,which one is more important,objective outcome or subjective intention? Will this unstable environment influence the receiver’s reaction? If only the receiver acquire the knowledge of this unstable environment or both the receiver and the sender know this information,will this information symmetry condition influence the reciprocity of the receiver? To explore how the information symmetry influence the reciprocity of the trustee in an unstable trust-reciprocate system which the invest outcome is separated from the trustor’s real intention,two studies are designed.Study 1.We introduced a variable “Twist Probability” to represent system stability into standard trust game.In this noisy trust game,the decision from the trustor would be possibly twisted so the invest outcome didn’t wholly correctly reflect trustor’s real intention.This unstable trust-reciprocate system separated objective outcome from the subjective intention,which could be used to investigate whether different system stability would influence the reciprocity of trustee.24 participants were recruited as the trustee to play 2 blocks repeated noisy trust game,which each block contained 80 trials.The system stability of one block was not destroyed completely,i.e.the twist probability was 25%,the other block’s system stability was totally destroyed,i.e.the twist probability was 50%.The result showed that,whatever the twist probability was,although the trustee’s reciprocity was higher when the real intention of the trustor was trust than that of distrust,this distinction was significant only when the invest outcome was benefited,which meant the trustee received the investment actually.Study 2.Based on the study 1,we included a between group variable “Information Symmetry Condition” to explore when the trustee had the knowledge that the trustor knew or didn’t know that the system stability of their trust-reciprocate system was damaged,would this knowledge influence the trustee’s reciprocity? 41 participants were recruited as the trustee and were randomly assigned into two groups to play the same repeated noisy trust game as study 1.Information symmetry group contained 17 participants and the information asymmetry group contained 24 participants.The results showed that compared to the information symmetry group,the participants in the information asymmetry group tended to reciprocate more after getting investment,and their reaction time were also shorter when the twist probability was 25%.In conclusion,trustee’s reciprocity will consider trustor’s real intention and be influenced by different system stability and information symmetry condition only after getting actual interest,which means in a relatively more stable trust-reciprocate system,the trustee’s reciprocity will be more and faster when the trustee view the information is asymmetry.