New publication from our lab: Alessandro Stringhi in Games and Economic Behavior

We are pleased to announce that our colleague Alessandro Stringhi has published an article titled “Guilt and Fairness” in the Games and Economic Behavior journal.

What is the study about?

The paper asks a central question: what drives trustworthiness and prosocial behavior in interpersonal interactions? Two main candidates are inequity aversion (a dislike of being in a disadvantageous position relative to others) and guilt aversion (a desire not to disappoint others’ expectations). Although both theories can explain prosocial behavior, their predictions diverge in situations where the payoffs of one of the players change.

Alessandro designed a laboratory experiment based on the so‑called Trust Minigame to study how behavior changes when the payoff of the first player (the trustor) is doubled, while the payoff of the second player (the trustee) remains unchanged. The results are clear: the share of prosocial behavior in the high‑inequality condition is reduced by about half. The study thus provides direct empirical evidence that preferences for equality are a key driver of trustworthiness in situations where wealth inequality is salient.