DP2016-09

Gender-specific Reference-dependent
Preferences in a nExperim ental Trust Game
Hiromasa TAKAHASHI
Junyi SHEN
Kazuhito OGAWA
March 9, 2016

Gender-specific reference-dependent preferences in an experimental trust game
Hiromasa Takahashia,*, Junyi Shenb,c, and Kazuhito OgawadaFaculty of International Studies, Hiroshima City University, 3-4-1 Ozuka-Higashi, Asa-Minami,

Hiroshima 731-3194, Japanb

Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University, 2-1 Rokkodai,

Kobe, Hyogo 657-8501, Japanc

School of Economics, Shanghai University, 99 Shangda Road, Baoshan, Shanghai 200444,

China
d

Faculty of Sociology and Center for Experimental Economics, Kansai University, 3-3-35

Yamate-cho, Suita, Osaka 564-8680, Japan

Abstract
We examine gender-specific reference-dependent preferences in a trust game experiment.
Different participation fees and one question eliciting subjects’ reference points were used tocategorize subjects into three frames: the gain frame, gain or loss frame, and loss frame. We findthat (i) men are risk-seeking in both the gain and the loss frame; (ii) women are not always morerisk-averse than men; and (iii) women display other-regarding preferences only when they are in
the gain frame. These results demonstrate the importance of taking account of both genderdifferences and reference-dependent preferences when examining individuals’ economic
behavior.
Keywords: Reference-dependent preference; gender difference; trust game experiment; risk
preference; other-regarding preference
JEL classification: C72; C91* Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 828301525; E-mail address: htaka@intl.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp1

1.

Introduction
The early economic literature on decision making under risk was dominated by expectedutility theory, which states that the expected utility of an act is a weighted average of the utilitiesof each of its possible outcomes, Kahneman and Tversky (1979) developed an alternative model
called prospect theory, which is based on the following three statements. First, the value
obtained from one’s decisions is assigned to gains and losses rather than to final assets, and any
return above one’s reference point might be considered to be a gain and any return below one’sreference point a loss. Second, losses generally loom larger than gains, indicating an aversion toloss. Finally, the value function is normally concave for gains and convex for losses, which
implies risk aversion and risk-seeking behavior, respectively. Given the importance of linking
people’s reference points with their behavior, however, to the best of our knowledge, few
studies have empirically investigated how people behave differently according to their reference
points in decision making under risk.
Previous studies of reference points are scarce and typically focus on how an individual’sreference point affects effort provision or labor supply (Abeler et al., 2011; Andersen et al.,2014; Fehr et al., 2011; Hilken et al., 2013). Abeler et al. (2011) investigated experimentallywhether expectations can affect effort provision and found that effort provision is significantly
different between treatments in the way predicted by models of expectation-basedreference-dependent preferences: if expectations are high, subjects work longer and earn moremoney than if expectations are low. Andersen et al. (2014) designed a field experiment to study
reference-dependent labor supply. They found that, consistent with neoclassical theory andreference-dependent preferences with endogenous reference points, workers (i.e., vendors inopen air markets in their case) supply more hours when presented with an expected transitory
increase in hourly wages. In contrast to the prediction of behavioral models, however, whenvendors earn an unexpected windfall in the day, their labor supply does not respond.
In addition to the importance of reference points, gender differences in behavior have beenstudied in many economic experiments. Croson and Gneezy (2009) reviewed the literature andidentified robust differences in three main sections: risk preferences, social (other-regarding)preferences, and competitive preferences. They concluded that (i) women are more risk-averse
than men; (ii) the social preferences of women are more situationally specific than those of men;
women are neither more nor less socially oriented, but their social preferences are more
malleable; and (iii) women are more averse to competition than men. Acknowledging thesegender differences, in the present study we design a trust game experiment to investigate
gender-specific reference-dependent preferences. Since studies taking account of both genderdifferences and reference-dependent preferences are extremely scarce, we expect to provide
some new insights into the body of knowledge on this topic.
2

In the best-known version of the trust game (Berg et al., 1995), an agent (called a trustor) is
asked what proportion of a given endowment he or she is willing to entrust to a complete
stranger (called a trustee) with the expectation that the latter will reciprocate by returning moremoney than he or she initially received. The accounting is made viable by the fact that any
investment made by the sender is multiplied by a factor of more than one (tripled in our
experiment) before reaching the recipient. While the solution predicted by game theory is thatboth trustor and trustee have no incentive to make any positive offers, Pareto efficiency would
require the sender to trust and the recipient to be trustworthy (i.e., if the sender makes a positive
offer and the receiver returns an amount not lower than the offer received, both parties are betteroff or at least not worse off). Although the typical interpretation of the trust game labels thesender’s behavior as “trust” and the receiver’s behavior as “trustworthiness,” it should be notedthat trust or trusting behavior carries the risk of negative consequences if the trust is misplaced
and met by untrustworthy behavior. Therefore, the trustor’s behavior can also, to some extent,
exhibit his or her risk preference.
Previous studies investigating gender differences in trust games have provided mixed
findings on both trustor and trustee behavior. On the trustor behavior, while a number of studies
have found no gender differences in sending behavior (Bohnet, 2007; Bohnet et al., 2010; Cox
and Deck, 2006; Croson and Buchan, 1999; Schwieren and Sutter, 2008), other works haveshown that men are more trusting or risk-seeking than women (Buchan et al., 2008; Chaudhuri
and Gangadharan, 2007; Garbarino and Slonim, 2009; Snijders and Keren, 2001). Only a few
studies have found that women are more trusting or risk-seeking than men (Bellemare andKröger, 2003; Bohnet et al., 2010). In addition, while some authors have found no genderdifferences in trustworthiness or reciprocity (Bohnet, 2007; Cox and Deck, 2006; Innocenti andPazienza, 2006), others have shown that women are more reciprocal than men (Buchan et al.,2008; Chaudhuri and Gangadharan, 2007; Croson and Buchan, 1999; Schwieren and Sutter,
2008; Snijders and Keren, 2001). Indeed, only Bellemare and Kröger (2003) found that men are
more reciprocal than women.
We conducted a one-shot trust game experiment. Before starting the experiment, we asked
subjects how much they expected to earn in the experiment. This amount of expected earnings
served as the subject’s reference point. In addition, three treatments based on different
participation fees (0, 500, and 1000 JPY) were designed to help categorize subjects into threeframes: the gain frame, gain or loss frame, and loss frame. Our main findings are that (i) malesubjects are risk-seeking in both the gain frame and the loss frame; (ii) women are not always
more risk-averse than men; and (iii) women display other-regarding preferences only when they
are in the gain frame.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the issues related to3the experiment. The results of the experiment are presented in Section 3. Finally, Section 4
discusses the results and suggests several possible directions for future studies.

2.

Experimental design
Our one-shot trust game experiment had three treatments according to the participation fee:

0, 500, and 1000 JPY. The 0 and 500 JPY treatments consisted of five sessions each and the1000 JPY treatment consisted of eight sessions. All experimental sessions were conducted at
Kansai University from June 2014 to September 2015. We confirmed in advance and guaranteedthat one subject was allowed to take part in only one experimental session. As a result, 420
subjects participated in the experiment (199 men). Table 1 provides detailed information on thenumber of subjects in each treatment. Subjects were assigned to be either a trustor or a trustee
and then paired randomly. To maintain anonymity between trustors and trustees, they werearranged in different classrooms when they arrived and stayed there during the experiment. In
each classroom, subjects were first asked to write down their answers about how much theywould expect to earn from the upcoming experiment. After these answers were collected by theexperimenter, subjects received written experimental instructions, which were first readindividually by subjects and then aloud by a Japanese-speaking experimenter. 1
Both the trustors and the trustees received an envelope containing an endowment of 600
JPY (i.e., five 100-yen coins, one 50-yen coin, and five 10-yen coins). 2 The trustors had todecide on the amount to transfer to their counterparts. After deciding the amount, the trustors
were asked to put the money being transferred into another envelope provided by theexperimenter. Then, an experimenter took them to an empty room and tripled the transferred
amount. After that, the experimenter took these envelopes to the trustees’ classroom anddistributed them to the corresponding trustees. The trustees learned the trustors’ transfer anddecided how much to give back to their counterparts. After deciding the amount, the trustees
were asked to put the money in the same envelope; the experimenter then took these envelopes
to the trustors’ classroom and distributed to the corresponding trustors. After all subjects hadcompleted their record sheets, the experiment was finished. 3
1

Only the experimental instructions of the session that offered subjects a 500 JPY participation fee
are provided in Appendix A. Those of the other sessions were similar.
2 In the 500 and 1000 JPY treatments, both trustors and trustees received one additional envelope
containing their participation fee.
3 In seven sessions, poker chips were used instead of cash. In these sessions, the earned chips werechanged to real money at the end of the experiment. We used poker chips to investigate whether
there was a tangibility effect of cash (Reinstein and Riener, 2012; Shen and Takahashi, 2013; Wang
and Qin, 2015) in our experiment. However, because we found no statistical differences in either
trustor or trustee behavior between poker chip and cash sessions, we pooled these data in our
4Communication was prohibited during the experiment, with subjects told that theexperiment would be terminated immediately if they communicated with one another. Eachsession of the experiment lasted for about 45 minutes and subjects earned, on average, 1395 JPY(about 12.67 USD, using 1 USD = 110 JPY). 4

3.

Experimental results

3.1 Preliminary results
Table 2 reports the mean values of subjects’ gender-specific reference points, transfer rates,
and return rates. The transfer rate is calculated by dividing the trustor’s transfer amount by theendowment of 600 JPY, and the return rate is calculated by dividing the trustee’s return amountby the received tripled amount. As shown in the table, the mean value of the reference point for
male subjects is 1383.67 JPY, which is significantly higher than that for female subjects(1223.98 JPY). This means that, on average, men expected to earn more in the experiment than
women. With respect to the trustor’s transfer behavior, male subjects averagely transferred halfof their endowments, which is significantly higher than that of female subjects. However, there
is no significant difference observed in the trustee’s return behavior, either in the return rate orin the return amount. 5

3.2 Results of categorizing subjects based on their reference points
Figures 1a and 1b present the images of categorizing trustors and trustees, respectively.
Trustors were categorized into the Gain frame, Loss frame, or Gain or Loss frame by comparing
their reference points with participation fee and “participation fee + endowment.” The trustors
whose reference points were smaller than the participation fee were categorized into the Gainframe. Trustors categorized in the Gain frame would be so even though they transferred all theendowment (600 JPY) and got nothing back. On the other hand, the trustors whose reference
points were larger than “participation fee + endowment” were categorized into the Loss frame.
Trustors categorized in the Loss frame would be so if they did not transfer any amount for
expecting some returns. The remaining trustors were categorized into the Gain or Loss frame.

empirical analysis.
4 The trustor’s payoff is calculated as the sum of “600 JPY – his/her transfer + the amount given
back by the trustee + his/her participation fee.” The trustee’s payoff is calculated as the sum of “600JPY + the tripled amount of the trustor’s transfer – the amount that he/she gave back + his/herparticipation fee.”
5 The results of the three treatments are provided in Appendix B.
5

Whether those categorized in Gain or Loss frame would be in a gain frame or a loss frame wasdependent on their transfer amounts and the returns they would receive from the trustees. In
particular, they would be in a gain frame if they transferred nothing. Similarly, trustees werealso categorized into the Gain frame, Loss frame, and Gain or Loss frame by comparing theirreference points with “participation fee + endowment” and “participation fee + endowment +tripled transfer.” Trustees categorized in the Gain frame would be so even though they returned
all received tripled transfers. Trustees categorized in the Loss frame would be so even if they
returned nothing. For trustees categorized in the Gain or Loss frame, whether they would be in
the gain frame or the loss frame was dependent on their return amounts. That is, they could
decide in which frame they would be.
Based on the above categorization, Table 3 reports the descriptive statistics of the trustor’stransfer rate specified by category and gender. To further clarify the distributions of transfer
behavior among the different categories, the cumulative distribution functions of the transfer
rate for male and female subjects are also presented in Figure 2. As shown in this figure, formale trustors the distribution of the transfer rate in the Gain or Loss frame is stochasticallydominated by those in the Gain frame and Loss frame, while for female trustors there seems no
obvious domination among these three frames.
The mean and median values reported in Table 3 support the visual evidence. Men in theGain frame and Loss frame significantly transferred more than men in the Gain or Loss frame (ttest and Wilcoxon rank sum test, both p values < 0.01). Further, there is no significant differencein the transfer rate between men in the Loss frame and in the Gain frame (t test and Wilcoxon
rank sum test, both p values > 0.48). In addition, the transfer rate of female trustors did not vary
among the different categories (t test and Wilcoxon rank sum test, all p values > 0.90). With
regard to the comparison between men and women, we found that male trustors significantly
transferred more than women in the Gain frame and in the Loss frame (t test and Wilcoxon rank
sum test, both p values < 0.001 in the Gain frame and both p values < 0.05 in the Loss frame),but not in the Gain or Loss frame (t test and Wilcoxon rank sum test, both p values > 0.90).
Table 4 provides the descriptive statistics of the trustee’s return rate specified by category
and gender, and Figure 3 presents the cumulative distribution functions of the return rate formale and female subjects. As shown in the figure, for female trustees the distribution of the
return rate in the Gain frame stochastically dominates those in the Gain or Loss frame and Lossframe; for male trustees there seems no obvious domination among these three frames. The
results obtained from the t test and Wilcoxon rank sum test suggest that the return rate of men
did not vary among categories (all p values > 0.26). Moreover, women in the Gain frame
significantly returned more than women in the Gain or Loss frame (both p values < 0.05) and in
the Loss frame (both p values < 0.01). In addition, there is no significant difference in the return6rate between women in the Gain or Loss frame and in the Loss frame (both p values > 0.26).
Finally, women significantly returned more than men in the Gain frame (both p values < 0.05)
and in the Gain or Loss frame (both p values < 0.05), but not in the Loss frame (both p values >0.21).

4.

Discussion and conclusion
This study examined gender-specific reference-dependent preferences in a trust game

experiment. The three main results are somewhat different to those in previous studies. First,
prospect theory, proposed by Kahneman and Tversky (1979), suggests that people arerisk-seeking for losses and risk-averse for gains; however, we found that men sent more in bothgain and loss frames, while women did not. This result exhibits that men can also be
risk-seeking even in the gain frame. Although its robustness needs to be verified by further
research, this finding could be plausible because when risk-seeking men receive payoffs above
their expectations, they might be willing to take the risk/return tradeoff with the “profits”(certain payoffs minus expected earnings) to pursue more gains. However, the result that men
sent less in the Gain or Loss frame suggests the loss aversion property of their preference.
Second, although Croson and Gneezy (2009) concluded that women are more risk-averse
than men, our results indicate that this is not always the case. In our trust game experiment, we
did find that women are more risk-averse than men in the Gain frame and the Loss frame.
However, in the Gain or Loss frame there is no difference between men and women in risk
preferences. This finding implies that the gender difference in risk preferences could besituationally specific according to in which frame they are.
Third, the result that women in the Gain frame significantly returned more than women in
the Gain or Loss frame and in the Loss frame shows that women are not always reciprocal; they
display other-regarding preferences only when they are in the gain frame. In the other two
frames, the other-regarding preferences of women may be dominated by their loss aversion
preference. Therefore, it seems that similar to the gender difference in risk preferences,
women’s other-regarding preferences are also situationally specific.
The above findings demonstrate the importance of interacting gender differences withreference-dependent preferences when examining individuals’ economic behavior. Because
studies that account for both these issues are scarce, future research is thus needed to verify ourfindings and provide more new insights into the body of knowledge on this topic.
Finally, the trust game used in our experiment allows us to observe both trustor and trustee
behavior in the Gain frame and the Loss frame. However, behavior in the Gain or Loss frame isdifficult to analyze because whether subjects are in the gain frame or in the loss frame is7dependent on their experimental behavior. Therefore, a new theoretical framework that serves as
directions for experiments should be considered in future studies. In addition, in our
experiments we studied a sample of student subjects. However, research with non-student poolssuggests that students might behave differently to non-student subjects. Therefore, future studies
could be conducted by recruiting members from other sections of society.

Acknowledgments
The financial support from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology through Grants-in-aid for Scientific Research (C) 25380234 and 15K03353 is
gratefully acknowledged. For recruiting subjects, the Centre for Experimental Economics,
Kansai University helped a lot. All the views expressed in this paper and any errors are the sole
responsibility of the authors.

References
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9

AppendicesA. Experimental instructions
A.1. For trustors in the session with a 500 JPY participation fee
Procedure of the experiment
We will now explain the procedure of the experiment. Please read carefully and make sure
you understand.


In another room (lecture room A304), there are people who will be paired with you. You
will never be informed of the identity of these counterparts.

This experiment will be carried out only once. 6①. At the beginning of the experiment, both you and your counterpart receive a 500 JPY 7

participation fee in an envelope. Note that this money is independent of your performancein the experiment.
②. Then, you receive another envelope (hereinafter referred to as Envelope A) containing 600

JPY and an empty envelope (hereinafter referred to as Envelope B) on which a sequence ofcharacters is printed.
③. You must decide how much you are going to transfer to your counterpart. Please decide theamount from 0 JPY to 600 JPY in units of 10 JPY.
④. After you make your decision, please write the amount in the field “Your transfer” of therecord sheet. Then, put the money being transferred into Envelope B and put the remainder
into Envelope A.
⑤. The experimenter will collect Envelope B, triple your transferred amount, and take

Envelope B containing the tripled amount of money to your counterpart.
⑥. Note that your counterpart also receives 600 JPY as you do. Your counterpart will decide

how much to give back to you from the sum of the tripled amount and his/her 600 JPY.
⑦. Then, the experimenter will bring Envelope B containing the money that your counterpart

gives back to you. Please check the amount and write it in the field “Amount given back by
the counterpart” on the record sheet.
⑧. Please calculate your total payoff, which is the sum of “600 JPY – your transfer + theamount given back by your counterpart + 500 JPY participation fee” and write the amountin the field “Your payoff” of the record sheet.
6

When using poker chips, we also provided information that explained the number on the chips
meant the yen amount and that they would be changed to cash after the experiment.
7 “500 JPY” was replaced with “poker chips worth 500 JPY” in the chip sessions. The following
descriptions of the amount of money were replaced in the same way.
10

⑨. Finally, check whether the above amount is consistent with the cash you hold. Please takethe money and leave the room quietly if it is consistent.

A.2. For trustees in the session with a 500 JPY participation fee
Procedure of the experiment
We will now explain the procedure of the experiment. Please read carefully and make sure
you understand.


In another room (lecture room A303), there are people who will be paired with you. You
will never be informed of the identity of these counterparts.

This experiment will be carried out only once.

①. At the beginning of the experiment, both you and your counterpart receive a 500 JPY

participation fee in an envelope. Note that this money is independent of your performancein the experiment.
②. Then, you receive another envelope (hereinafter referred to as Envelope A) containing 600

JPY.
③. Your counterpart also receives 600 JPY and decides how much to transfer to you from the

600 JPY.
④. The experimenter will triple the transferred amount and put it into an envelope (hereinafterreferred to as Envelope B) on which “○○○×3=###” is written. ○○○ is the transferred
amount and ### is the tripled amount. Please confirm the transferred and tripled amounts
and write them in the fields “The transferred amount” and “The tripled amount” on therecord sheet, respectively.
⑤. You are to decide how much to give back to your counterpart. After deciding the amount,please write it in the field “Amount giving back” on the record sheet. Then, put the money
being given back into Envelope B and put the remainder into Envelope A.
⑥. The experimenter will collect Envelope B and take it to your counterpart.
⑦. Please calculate your total payoff which is the sum of “600 JPY + the tripled amount – theamount that you give back to your counterpart + 500 JPY participation fee” and write theamount in the field of “Your payoff” on the record sheet.
⑧. Finally, check whether the above amount is consistent with the cash you hold. Please takethe money and leave the room quietly if it is consistent.

11

B. Results of three treatments with different participation fees
Participation fee 1000

Participation fee 500

Participation

JPY

JPY

fee 0

Frequency

36

36

37

Mean

0.374

0.334

0.368

Median

0.333

0.275

0.333

Frequency

44

27

30

Mean

0.475

0.451

0.665

Median

0.412

0.417

0.825

Frequency

41

32

39

Mean

0.384

0.445

0.329

Median

0.333

0.456

0.333

Frequency

39

31

28

Mean

0.286

0.28

0.341

Median

0.167

0.206

0.267

Transfer rate
FemaleMale

Return rate
FemaleMale

Notes: Concerning the gender differences in different treatments, the transfer rate of men in the 0
JPY treatment is significantly higher than that of women (p = 0.0006 in t test and p = 0.003 in
Wilcoxon rank sum test), while there are no differences in the other two treatments (all p values >0.10). The return rate of women in the 500 and 1000 JPY treatments are higher than those of men(participation fee 500 JPY: p = 0.012 in t test and p = 0.009 in Wilcoxon rank sum test; participationfee 1000 JPY: p = 0.09 in t test and p = 0.06 in Wilcoxon rank sum test), while there is no differencein the 0 JPY treatment (both p values > 0.10). In addition, men in the 0 JPY treatment of transfer
significantly more than those in the other two treatments (all p values < 0.05 using both t test andWilcoxon rank sum test), while there is no treatment effect in the transfer rate of women (all p values> 0.10). The unique significant result for return rates exists in the comparison between women in the
500 JPY treatment and women in the 0 JPY treatment, with the previous higher than the latter (p =0.052 in t test and p = 0.03 in Wilcoxon rank sum test).

12

Table 1. Number of subjects in each experimental treatment
Participation

Participation fee 500

Participation fee 1000

Total

fee 0

JPY

JPY

Female

76

68

77

221

Male

58

58

83

199

Total

134

126

160

420

Note: The pairwise two-tailed proportion test indicates that there are no significant differences in theratio of men to women across treatments (all p values > 0.10).

Table 2. Mean values of the reference point, transfer rate, and return rate by gender
Male subjects

Female subjects

t valuep value (two-tailed)

Reference point (JPY)1383.671223.98

2.82

0.0050Transfer rate

0.504

0.380

3.84

0.0001Return rate

0.323

0.360

-1.41

0.1589Return amount (JPY)286.78245.381.34

0.1815

Table 3. Trustor’s transfer rate by category and gender

FemaleMaleGain frame

Gain or Loss frame

Loss frame

Frequency

20

26

63

Mean

0.354

0.356

0.362

Median

0.333

0.300

0.333

Frequency

22

24

55

Mean

0.639

0.293

0.581

Median

0.625

0.267

0.667

Gain frame

Gain or Loss frame

Loss frame

Frequency

64

27

21

Mean

0.435

0.335

0.272

Median

0.441

0.333

0.183

Frequency

39

32

27

Mean

0.332

0.260

0.308

Median

0.306

0.167

0.238

Table 4. Trustee’s return rate by category and gender

FemaleMale

13

Figure 1a. Categorization of trustors by their reference points

Figure 1b. Categorization of trustees by their reference points

14

1
.8
.6
.4
0

.2

Male subjects

0

.2

.4

.6

.8

1

transfer rate
Gain or Loss frame

.4

.6

.8

1

Loss frame
Gain frame

0.2

Female subjects

0

.2

.4

.6

.8

transfer rate
Gain or Loss frame

Loss frame
Gain frame

Figure 2. Cumulative distribution function of trustors’ transfer rates

15

1

1
.8
.6
.4
0

.2

Male subjects

0

.2

.4

.6

.8

1

return rate
Gain or Loss frame

.4

.6

.8

1

Loss frame
Gain frame

0.2

Female subjects

0

.2

.6

.4

.8

return rate
Loss frame
Gain frame

Gain or Loss frame

Figure 3. Cumulative distribution function of trustees’ return rates

161