TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Baumgartner, Stefanie S.
AU  - Galeotti, Fabio
AU  - Madies, Thierry
AU  - Villeval, Marie Claire
        TI  - Trust as a Social Norm? A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment with Refugees in Switzerland
        PY  - 2025/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 17822
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp17822
        AB  - Trust plays a crucial role in refugees’ integration. This study examines how social information about trust levels among peers from home and host countries affects non-Western refugees’ trust. Using a trust game, we measured experimentally trust levels among Swiss citizens, Turkish refugees, and Afghan refugees. We found that Turkish refugees exhibited higher trust levels than Afghan refugees, but no significant trust differences were found between Swiss participants and either refugee group. Turkish refugees adjusted their trust to match Swiss levels when receiving social information, but observation by compatriots reduced this effect. By contrast, Afghan refugees exhibited a more limited response to social information, except when told their behavior would be revealed, which led them to align more closely with Swiss trust levels. These findings highlight the complex impact of social information on refugee trust behavior and suggest that trust can be a social norm.
        KW  - social information
KW  - trust
KW  - refugees
KW  - lab-in-the-field experiment
        ER  -