Does competition foster trust? The role of tournament incentives
通过两个信任博弈实验，研究了锦标赛激励对信任和可信赖行为的影响，发现竞争会提高信任者的信任水平，但降低受托者的可信赖度，且信任者未能预见这一负面效应。
Abstract Members of organizations are often called upon to trust others and to reciprocate trust while at the same time competing for bonuses or promotions. We suggest that competition affects trust not only within dyads including direct competitors, but also between individuals who do not compete against each other. We test this idea in a trust game where trustors and trustees are rewarded based either on their absolute performance or on how well they do relative to players from other dyads. In Experiment 1, we show that competition among trustors significantly increases trust. Competition among trustees decreases trustworthiness, but trustors do not anticipate this effect. In Experiment 2, we additionally show that the increase in trust under competition is caused by a combination of increased risk taking and lower sensitivity to non-financial concerns specific to trust interactions. Our results suggest that tournament incentives might have a “blinding effect” on considerations such as betrayal and inequality aversion.