Historical Legacies, Slavery, and Trust

This project investigates the effects of slavery experienced by previous generations on interpersonal trust in a present-day West African Country. Focusing on the historical territory of a former pre-colonial kingdom, we adopt an epidemiological approach to identify two groups: descendants of slaves and descendants of slave-owning families (mainly tied to the royal lineage). While these groups now coexist in similar socioeconomic conditions, local knowledge—supported by historical research—allows for a reliable classification of individuals based on family origins.
To examine how historical legacies shape trust dynamics, we implement an incentivized trust game experiment in which participants interact with anonymous partners of known family background. Specifically, we test whether levels of trust and trustworthiness differ depending on whether the matched partner descends from a slave or slave-owning family. This setup allows us to capture not only general levels of trust but also whether mistrust is selectively directed toward specific historical outgroups.

2025-05-07

2026-12-31

1) Our primary focus is on trust, measured as the coins sent by the first mover in a Trust Game to a second mover. The two individuals are matched anonymously but are made aware of each others' familiy background (slave-origins vs. master- origins group)..

Definitions:
Trust ingroup = coins sent by First Mover belonging to one group (i.e. slave-origins/master-origins) to Second Mover belonging to the same group.
Trust outgroup = coins sent by First Mover belonging to one group (i.e. slave-origins/master-origins) to Second Mover belonging to the other group.

Research question 1: In terms of overall trust -- that is, the general level of trust toward both ingroups and outgroups members, which group today shows lowest level of trust?

Hypothesis: We do not have a directional hypothesis but predict today a difference between the two groups.
Average (trust ingroup + trust outgroup) slave-origins != Average (trust ingroup + trust outgroup) master-origins

We test it using a two-sided Wilcoxon rank-sum test & by using the following regression model:

Avg trust_i = alpha_0 + \beta_1 slave-origin_i + \beta_2 X_i + \epsilon_i

where slave-origin is a dummy equal to 1 when player i is a descendants of formerly enslaved ancestors, and X_i is a set of socio-demographic controls.


Research question 2: What are the trust dynamics within and between specific groups today?

[We will perform a preliminary check testing whether ingroup trust is larger than outgroup trust for both groups (i.e. check whether participants in our sample display parochial trust with respect to the groups as defined by their origins). We expect results consistent with the literature that shows a general tendency to display some level of parochial trust in societies across the globe.]

Hypothesis: Parochial trust (the difference between ingroup and outgroup trust) is larger for participants with slave origins compared to those with master-origins. We expect that participants with slave origins trust comparatively more ingroups, and less outgroups, than participants with master origins (directional hypothesis). We anticipate that this can be due to the intergenerational inheritance of sentiment of distrust toward the oppressors/masters.

trust_slave-origins (ingroup - outgroup) > trust_master-origins (ingroup - outgroup)

We test this hypothesis using a two-sided Wilcoxon rank-sum test & by employing the following regression model:

trust_i = \alpha + \beta_1 slave-origin_i + \beta_2 slave-origin_j + \beta_3 (slave-origin_i * slave-origin_j) + \beta_4 X_i + \epsilon_i

where slave-origin is a dummy equal to 1 when player i and/or player j are a descendants of formerly enslaved ancestors.

1) Trustworthiness as a Secondary Outcome (incentivized measure)
We also examine trustworthiness as a secondary outcome, measured by the share of the endowment returned by the second mover in a Trust Game where the first mover’s family background is disclosed.
While our main analysis focuses on trust, we include trustworthiness for additional insights. This choice is motivated by the challenges of measuring trustworthiness in a field setting and our limited sample size.
Importantly, we opted to inform second movers of the actual decisions made by first movers, rather than using the strategy method with hypothetical scenarios. We made this design choice to enhance the salience of the second movers' decisions. However, this approach comes at a cost: we lose observations when first movers send 0 coins, since no decision is then required from the second mover. While we cannot predict the proportion of first movers who will send 0 coins, this may result in less precise estimates of trustworthiness compared to trust.

Unincentivized measures collected:

2) Generalized Trust
Participants respond to survey question Q43 from Wave 8 of the World Values Survey (WVS): "In general, how much do you trust people?" This is recorded as a binary outcome.

3) Parochial Trust
To measure parochial trust, we include survey questions Q44–Q49 from the WVS Wave 8. These responses are measured on a 1–4 scale.

4) Institutional Trust
Participants are also presented with a selected set of questions from WVS Wave 8 (Q50–Q58 and Q69–Q77) to assess trust in specific institutions (e.g., government, police, courts) and organizations (e.g., church, newspapers). These outcomes are also measured on a 1–4 scale.

5) Mechanism – Sentiment Analysis
To explore mechanisms, we conduct a sentiment analysis of open-ended comments made by participants in response to a text describing the conditions of slaves, which was read aloud to them.

We conduct a trust game experiment with two roughly balanced groups of participants: descendants of former slaves and descendants of former slave-owners. All participants live in the same locality and speak the same language, minimizing differences in socioeconomic background and cultural context. Each participant plays two trust games that are identical in structure but vary in the group identity of their matched partner.

The trust game proceeds as follows: each participant receives an initial endowment of 5 coins (each worth 100 CFA, approximately $0.17). The first-mover (the trustor) can choose to send either 0 or 5 coins to the second-mover (the trustee). Any amount sent is quadrupled by the experimenters. The second-mover then decides how many of these coins to return to the first-mover, choosing an integer amount between 0 and the full received amount (no fractional coins are allowed). Final payoffs are calculated as follows: the first-mover earns the coins kept plus any returned amount, while the second-mover earns the amount received minus what they return.

Unlike the strategy method, second-movers are only shown the actual decision made by their matched first-mover and respond accordingly. If the first-mover sends 0, the game ends immediately and the second-mover makes no decision. Each participant is randomly assigned to play as either a first- or second-mover at the start of the experiment, and this role remains fixed across both games.

Crucially, in one game, participants are paired with a randomly selected individual from their own group; in the other, with someone from the opposite group. The order of these two pairings is randomized. Participants are informed that only one of the two games will be randomly selected for payment and that the corresponding earnings will be distributed during the following week.

Not available

In office by a computer

Individual

No

Approximately 1600/2000 observations from 800/1000 individuals (depending on fundings/costs in the field)

Approximately 1600/2000 observations from 800/1000 individuals. Two family background groups, balanced samples.

We aim at 400/500 participants from each group (depending on fundings/costs in the field)