Intentionality matters for third-party punishment but not compensation in trust games

We investigate how the intentionality of investors or trustees' actions affects third party compensation and punishment interventions after a trust game. Investors and trustees are randomly assigned to conditions where they either make intentional choices or their choices are made by a random machine. Overall, we find that lack of reciprocity is punished more than lack of trust, and third parties exhibit strong preferences for compensation over punishment. We find that only the punishment choice is affected by the intentionality of parties' actions, whereas compensation occurs in all conditions, whether lack of trust or reciprocity has been intentional or unintentional. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.