TRUST, TRUTH, STATUS AND IDENTITY an experimental inquiry ∗

Abstract: In an experiment involving a standard trust game and a costless signalling game, it is demonstrated that economically relevant norm-based behaviors (trust, reci-procity and truth-telling) vary with social identity. The experimental procedure induced two trivial social identities. In one version, a status difference was induced. The results permitted a succinct description of identity effects: subjects held own-group members to a higher standard; and high status subjects held everyone, including themselves, to a higher standard. To illustrate the “high status/high standards ” phenomenon, subjects ’ “standards ” were estimated from a simple identity model for a subset of the data. ∗This paper comprises a portion of my doctoral dissertation, completed at the University of California, Berkeley. This version is as of October 2008. I owe a great debt of gratitude to George A. Akerlof, Stefano DellaVigna, Steven Marc Goldman, Shachar Kariv, Ulrike Malmendier and John Morgan for many helpful comments and discussions. I am also gratefu