(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/bdm.449 Trust and Trustworthiness in a Sequential Bargaining Game

We use a two-person extensive form bargaining game to explore individuals ’ trusting and reciprocal behavior and how those relate to their scores on a trust survey. In keeping with prior research, we find that the ‘self-interested ’ outcome is rejected by a majority of individuals. People who score high on the trust survey are both trusting and are also trustworthy, in that they reciprocate others ’ trust. But people with low-trust scores often exhibit trust but are not trustworthy. These ‘inconsistent trusters ’ seem to be interested in exploiting the trust and trustworthiness of others in increasing their own payoff. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. key words trust; reciprocity; social values orientation; sequential game; bargainin