TY - JOUR
T1 - Trust recovery following voluntary or forced financial compensations in the trust game: The role of trait forgiveness
AU - Desmet, Pieter
AU - De Cremer, D (David)
AU - van Dijk, E
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - One of the major challenges that actors in economic exchange relations face today concerns dealing with defection and overcoming the erosion of trust and cooperation that may result from a transgression. As transgressions in these relations usually entail a monetary loss for the victim, a common restorative approach involves providing a financial compensation to the victim. This research examines whether compensations that were provided voluntarily (rather than forced) would promote more trust among victims. In contrast to standard economic theory, we predict that individual differences exist that determine the degree to which victims are susceptible towards information about how the financial compensation is delivered in their decision to trust and cooperate again. Experimental data from a trust game confirmed our hypotheses by showing that whereas receiving a voluntary compensation from the transgressor communicates more repentance to victims than when this compensation was imposed, particularly people with a low tendency to forgive discount this repentance in their decision to trust again.
AB - One of the major challenges that actors in economic exchange relations face today concerns dealing with defection and overcoming the erosion of trust and cooperation that may result from a transgression. As transgressions in these relations usually entail a monetary loss for the victim, a common restorative approach involves providing a financial compensation to the victim. This research examines whether compensations that were provided voluntarily (rather than forced) would promote more trust among victims. In contrast to standard economic theory, we predict that individual differences exist that determine the degree to which victims are susceptible towards information about how the financial compensation is delivered in their decision to trust and cooperate again. Experimental data from a trust game confirmed our hypotheses by showing that whereas receiving a voluntary compensation from the transgressor communicates more repentance to victims than when this compensation was imposed, particularly people with a low tendency to forgive discount this repentance in their decision to trust again.
U2 - 10.1016/j.paid.2010.05.027
DO - 10.1016/j.paid.2010.05.027
M3 - Article
VL - 51
SP - 267
EP - 273
JO - Personality and Individual Differences
JF - Personality and Individual Differences
SN - 0191-8869
IS - 3
ER -