trustdata

This data is from an experiment involving use of emojis in laboratory trust games executed on mobile devices. In this paper, I explore how emojis impact trust-generated welfare and how skin tone markers -- effectively signals -- shape one's willingness to trust. Exploiting a demographically diverse subject pool of mobile device users, I execute a laboratory experiment, exogenously restricting the type of computer-mediated chat players can use in a single endowment variant of the Berg et. al, 1998 "Investment game." This game allows for the exchange of money in a manner that creates potential surplus (a growing pie), and captures intuitive measures of trust (money sent), reciprocity (a proportion returned), and social welfare (final payoffs). Student subjects may could select from a library of emojis that allow skin tone markers and can converse throughout the entirety of the trust interaction. The emoji variables are binary coded if received by an player in the game. Skin tones embedded in emojis impact sharing and resulting gains.