Trustors’ disregard for trustees deciding quickly or slowly in three experiments with time constraints

Abstract

Many decisions in the economic and social domain are made under time constraints, be it under time pressure or forced delay. Requiring individuals to decide quickly or slowly often elicit different responses. Time pressure has been associated with inefficiency in market settings and market regulation often requires individuals to delay their decisions via cooling-off periods. Yet, recent research suggests that people who make reflective decisions are met with distrust. If this extends to external time constraints, then forcing individuals to delay their decisions may be counterproductive in scenarios where trust considerations are important, such as in market and organizational design. In three Trust Game experiments (total number of participants = 1872), including within- and betweensubjects designs, we test whether individuals trust (more) someone who is forced to respond quickly (intuitively) or slowly (reflectively). We find that trustors do not adjust their behavior (or their beliefs) to the trustee’s time conditions. This seems to be an appropriate response because time constraints do not affect trustees’ behavior, at least when the game decisions are binary (trust vs. don’t trust; reciprocate vs. don’t reciprocate) and therefore mistakes cannot explain choices. Thus, delayed decisions per se do not seem to elicit distrust.