Revisiting Trust and Reciprocity: A Replication and Extension of Cox (2004)

Last registered on June 15, 2023

View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Revisiting Trust and Reciprocity: A Replication and Extension of Cox (2004)

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0011545

Initial registration date

June 08, 2023

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

June 15, 2023, 4:55 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

United States of America

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Robert Mayo

Affiliation

Concordia College

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2023-06-19

End date

2023-12-31

Keywords

Behavior

Additional Keywords

Trust, Reciprocity, Online Experiment, Mechanical Turk, Replication

JEL code(s)

C99, D31, D64

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

We examine the robustness of Cox (2004) “How to Identify Trust and Reciprocity” to a change of subject pool from in-person laboratory subjects to online subjects recruited from Mechanical Turk.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Mayo, Robert. 2023. "Revisiting Trust and Reciprocity: A Replication and Extension of Cox (2004)." AEA RCT Registry. June 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.11545-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

Intervention Start Date

2023-06-19

Intervention End Date

2023-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Subjects’ choices

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

1) In the first replication, we reduce the initial endowments from the $10 used in Cox (2004) to $1.
2) In the second replication, we retain the $1 endowments and move the venue from in-person to online using Mechanical Turk workers as subjects.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Random number generator. In each session we will assign a randomly generated number to each subject. The subject with the lowest number will be assigned the role of monitor. If there are an odd number of subjects remaining, the next lowest number will be the monitor's helper. The remaining subjects will then be evenly divided into two groups with subjects with lower numbers assigned to group X and higher numbers assigned to group Y.

Randomization Unit

Individual.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Sample size: planned number of observations

94 Subject pairs in the in-person replication and 94 subject pairs in the online replication.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

In the in-person replication:
32 subject pairs in Trust A. as defined in Cox (2004).
30 subject pairs in Trust B.
32 subject pairs in Trust C.

In the online replication:
32 subject pairs in Trust A. as defined in Cox (2004).
30 subject pairs in Trust B.
32 subject pairs in Trust C.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB