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This paper examines the difference between strategic ambiguity as in game theory and ambiguity arising in individual decisions. We identify a new, non-strategic component underlying all strategic ambiguities, called social ambiguity. We recommend controlling for it to better identify strategic causes. Thus, we shed new light on Bohnet and Zeckhauser's betrayal aversion in the trust game. We first show theoretically that, contrary to preceding claims in the literature, ambiguity attitudes can play a role here. We then show experimentally that social ambiguity, rather than betrayal aversion, can explain our empirical findings. Using our new control, we identify the unique effect of strategic ambiguity. Strategic complexity increases ambiguity perception and thus increases people's likelihood insensitivity when making decisions under strategic ambiguity. Our results show the usefulness of controlling for ambiguity attitudes before speculating on strategic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heightened belief that others intend to harm you (paranoia) is often accompanied by social withdrawal, avoidance and isolation. We investigated whether paranoia is related to betrayal aversion: the tendency to avoid potential harm caused by other people over and above an equivalent harm caused by a non-social mechanism. Across three large-N (N total = 2433) pre-registered online studies, we employed a game theoretic paradigm where participants engaged in interactions with real players. Studies 1 and 2 explored betrayal aversion by eliciting participants' willingness to enter interactions where monetary reward was either determined by another player or a lottery. Study 3 examined betrayal aversion in a context where choices were not financially-incentivised. Paranoia was not associated with betrayal aversion or risk aversion in any study. We consider two possibilities: that paranoia does not involve increased risk aversion or betrayal aversion, or that the paradigm was limited in terms of its ability to trigger betrayal and risk aversion behaviour in paranoia. • Betrayal aversion was not associated with paranoia across three experiments. • Paranoia was not associated with risk aversion in social or non-social interactions. • Social avoidance in paranoia may be underpinned by risk perception rather than risk aversion. • Betrayal aversion tasks may not be sensitive enough to study social avoidance in paranoia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]