Do communication and identification necessarily inhibit trust? Or can they diminish trust- particularly in situations when communication discloses certain hitherto unknown cues about one's interlocutors? To study this question I use a simple lab experiment, where people play first-movers in...

One of the most consistent findings in experimental studies of social dilemmas is the positive influence of face-to-face (FtF) communication on cooperation. The FtF "communication effect" has been recently explained in terms of a "focus theory of norms": successful communication focuses agents...