Framing Effects on Strategic Information Design under Receiver Distrust and Unknown State

Strategic information design is a framework where a sender designs information strategically to steer its receiver's decision towards a desired choice. Traditionally, such frameworks have always assumed that the sender and the receiver comprehends the state of the choice environment, and that the receiver always trusts the sender's signal. This paper deviates from these assumptions and re-investigates strategic information design in the presence of distrustful receiver and when both sender and receiver cannot observe/comprehend the environment state space. Specifically, we assume that both sender and receiver has access to non-identical beliefs about choice rewards (with sender's belief being more accurate), but not the environment state that determines these rewards. Furthermore, given that the receiver does not trust the sender, we also assume that the receiver updates its prior in a non-Bayesian manner. We evaluate the Stackelberg equilibrium and investigate effects of information framing (i.e. send complete signal, or just expected value of the signal) on the equilibrium. Furthermore, we also investigate trust dynamics at the receiver, under the assumption that the receiver minimizes regret in hindsight. Simulation results are presented to illustrate signaling effects and trust dynamics in strategic information design.