Trust and how it is measured. While scholars across disciplines agree on the importance of trust in interpersonal exchanges, agreement on a precise definition of trust remains elusive (see Xxxxxx, 1995 for a survey of trust definitions across multiple disciplines). Despite this lack of clarity in meaning, most experimental economists have adopted Xxxxxxx’x definition, as it provides a measurable definition of trust (see Xxxxxxx, 1990; and Xxxxxxx, 2003). According to Xxxxxxx, trust is an action that involves the voluntary placement of resources at the disposal of a trustee with no enforceable commitment from the trustee. A trusting action creates the possibility of mutual benefit, if the trustee is cooperative, and the possibility of individual loss, if the trustee is opportunistic.4 In general, social scientists measure trust through surveys that include attitudinal questions. These questions are designed to capture the degree of confidence one has in others. Indeed, it is believed that people will behave trustingly if they believe others are trustworthy (i.e., confidence in others is a necessary condition for a trusting action). One such question is the ‘trust question’, which was first introduced by Almond and Verba (1963) in their study of civil society in post-war Europe. The text of this question reads, “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful when dealing with others?” Individuals who answer that most people can be trusted are labeled as trusting. When aggregated, the percentage of the sampled people 4 The interpretation of trust as an action may be somewhat controversial. However, the purpose of this chapter is not to develop a “best definition of trust”; here, we want to see whether widely used attitudinal questions about trust (found in the GSS and WVS surveys) can predict actions in trust games that have been widely used in the lab and in the field to measure trust, and whether these results are robust to controlling for altruism. who say most people can be trusted forms an estimate of the level of trust in a country and serves as an indicator for national social capital. Many national and international surveys, including the GSS, the WVS, Latinobarómetro, and the Australian Community Survey include this question. Despite its popularity, problems with the trust question do exist, mainly because it does not specify who ‘most people’ are. Thus, a question that asks people to agree or disagree with “You can’t count on ...
