Linguistic signaling, emojis, and skin tone in trust games.
This paper reports the results of an experiment involving text-messaging and emojis in laboratory trust games executed on mobile devices. Decomposing chat logs, I find that trust increases dramatically with the introduction of emojis to one-shot games, while reciprocation increases only modestly. Sk...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2020-01-01
|
Series: | PLoS ONE |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233277 |
Summary: | This paper reports the results of an experiment involving text-messaging and emojis in laboratory trust games executed on mobile devices. Decomposing chat logs, I find that trust increases dramatically with the introduction of emojis to one-shot games, while reciprocation increases only modestly. Skin tones embedded in emojis impact sharing and resulting gains-to the benefit of some and detriment to others. Both light and dark skin players trust less on receipt of a dark skin tone emoji-suggestive of statistical discrimination. In this way, computer-mediated communication leads to reduced gains for dark-skinned persons. These results highlight the complex social judgment that motivates trust in an anonymous counterpart. |
---|---|
ISSN: | 1932-6203 |