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Is it Betrayal Aversion or Regret Aversion?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2015

Itzhak Aharon*
Affiliation:
Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel
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Summary

Social and economie exchanges often occur between strangers who cannot rely on past behavior or the prospect of future interactions to establish mutual trust. Game theorists formalize this problem in several “one-shot” game – such as the trust game - predicting noncooperation – since the investor is not expecting trustee to reciprocate it is not rationally to invest. Bohnet and Zeckhauser (2004) suggest that, due to betrayal aversion, people seek to avoid situation in which one could be betrayed. We argue that this behavior could emerge also due to regret aversion.

Les échanges économiques et sociaux se produisent souvent entre des personnes étrangères les unes aux autres et qui ne peuvent donc pas se reposer sur une histoire commune ou sur la perspective de futures interactions dans le but d’1établir une confiance mutuelle. Les théoriciens des jeux formalisent ce problème en termes de « jeux en un coup » (une seule période) - comme peut l’être le « jeu de la confiance » - et prédisent que la non-coopération est l’équilibre théorique de ce jeu dans la mesure où le premier joueur, ne pouvant attendre que le second joueur rétribue de manière réciproque la confiance qu’il aurait mise en lui, est contraint à ne pas investir. Bohnet et Zeckhauser (2004) proposent que, du fait d’une aversion à la trahison, les individus préfèrent éviter des situations dans lesquelles ils pourraient être trahis. Nous développons l’argument selon lequel l’émergence d’un tel comportement peut être également due à une forme d’aversion au regret.

Type
II) Behaviorial Economics under the Scanner
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 2012 

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