Nonverbal content and trust: An experiment on digital communication

We experimentally study the effect of mode digital communication on emergence trust in a principal-agent relationship. consider three modes that differ capacity to transmit nonverbal content: plain text, audio, and video. Communication is pre-play, one-way, unrestricted, but its verbal content homogenized across treatments. Overall, both audio video messages have positive (and similar) as compared text; however, magnitude these effects depends agent's message (promise act trustworthily vs. no such promise). In all conditions, we observe promise principal's trust. also report female principals sensitive availability cues about their partners.