Attributions of trust and the calculus of reciprocity

This research investigated trust and reciprocity in two experiments using the Trust Game. In the Trust Game, Player 1 can “trust” an unknown Player 2 by sending some portion of a monetary endowment. The amount sent triples on its way to Player 2, who can then “reciprocate” by returning as much as he or she wishes to Player 1. Initial endowments were either $10 or $20 and were known to recipients; amounts sent were experimentally manipulated and varied from $2 to the entire endowment. Although many trusted parties returned enough money to equalize outcomes, trustors only benefited, on average, when they sent all or almost all of their endowments. Results suggested that recipients viewed sending less than everything as a lack of trust and that felt obligations mediated choices to reciprocate. These and other results contrast markedly with traditional, incremental models of the trust process, which suggest that initial trustors should take small risks and build trust gradually.     

员工被上司信任感的形成机制

现有文献显示员工感知到被上司信任在工作场所中非常重要,因为这种感知会带来许多与工作相关的积极产出。虽然我们已经知道被上司信任感是如何发挥作用的,但是对它的形成机制却知之甚少。忽视这一感知的产生机制将会限制其在管理实践中的有效应用,因为被上司信任感只有被成功地激发才能使信任关系得到建立,并由此对员工的行为产生影响。作为一种由个体对信任相关信息加工而得的感知,员工被上司信任感未必等同于上司实际的信任水平。因此,要想通过让员工感知到被信任来进行有效的管理,作为授信方的上司不仅要主动做出信任的行为,更需要考虑如何让员工准确地感受到自己的信任。 基于符号互动理论和社会信息加工理论,本文构建了一个关于员工被上司信任感形成机制的理论模型。根据该模型,上司的授权与培养这两种管理行为被识别为影响员工被上司信任感产生的重要因素;授权与培养对员工被上司信任感影响的有效性依赖于员工的目标导向、上司的可信度以及团队焦虑水平;员工被上司信任感的产生会影响员工的忠诚与敬业奉献,其影响程度受制于上司所面临的管理风险。 通过揭示上司的信任行为如何以及何时能激发员工被上司信任感并由此对员工的工作行为产生影响,本研究在理论和实践上做出了三个主要的贡献。首先,被信任感不是由授信方或被信任方单独一方决定的,而是在二者的互动中形成。虽然过往研究曾检验过领导风格对被上司信任感的影响,但却未从信任互动的角度进行解释。本文识别出了授权和培养这两种可以传达典型信任信息的管理行为,从而在理论上拓展了关于被上司信任感前因的文献,在实践上为上司如何做可以让员工感受到被信任提供了新的思路。其次,尽管被上司信任感的形成有赖于社会信息加工,却鲜有研究对该过程进行过探索。根据信息加工理论,本研究对被上司信任感产生的机理及边界条件发起了新的对话。我们不仅关注信任信息加工的正反效应,还探索了信息相关度（员工目标导向）与可信度（上司可信度）对这一过程的影响。关注员工目标导向有助于识别基于信任的管理行为的有效目标人群,而关注上司可信度进一步明确了上司在相关信息传达中可能产生的积极或消极的两种不同的影响。实践上,这一探究为管理者提供了重要的指导,帮助他们有针对性地、有效地让员工感知到被信任。最后,通过探讨团队焦虑和管理风险这两个团队层面上的消极因素的调节作用,本文丰富了对上下级信任互动情境的理解。实践上,我们为管理者如何在高不确定和充满挑战性的环境中采用信任管理策略提供了启发。     

Trust maintenance as a function of construal level and attributions: The case of apologies

When do recipients of an apology (“trustors”) base their decision to trust a perpetrator (a “trustee”) on the attributional information embedded in an apology? Attributions provide a detailed account of the trustee's causal involvement in committing a transgression. We therefore argue that trustors in a low construal level mindset use this information in their trusting decision. However, trustors in a high construal level mindset likely consider all apologies as simple statements of regret, regardless of the attributional information they contain. We find support for this argument in four laboratory experiments. This research nuances the idea that to restore trust by means of an apology, the trustee must only use an effective attribution for a negative outcome. We also present a more realistic understanding of the process leading from apologies to trust than has been offered in previous work by simultaneously considering the role of the trustor and that of the trustee in the trust restoration process.     

信任者权力对其人际信任的影响

信任者权力对其人际信任的影响是基于双方权力的不对等实现的还是取决于信任者自身的权力水平的问题值得研究。为此,本研究在实验一中考查了信任博弈任务中信任者的权力感（与被信任者的权力水平无关）对其人际信任的影响,在实验二中通过角色扮演任务操纵信任者与被信任者的权力关系（对等vs.不对等）,同时测量信任者的人际信任倾向。结果表明：信任者自身的权力感影响其人际信任,低权力感个体比高权力感个体更信任他人;双方权力对等与否对信任者的人际信任倾向没有影响。可见,信任者权力更多是作为信任者自身的属性特征影响其人际信任,而不以双方权力层级不对等为前提。     

Elements of trust: Risk and perspective-taking

Trust is essential to personal well-being and economic success, but it cannot occur without accepting the possibility of betrayal. In the experimental trust game, game-theoretic rationality prescribes that trust decisions should depend on the potential risk (egocentric costs and benefits) and the probability of reciprocity (derived from the trustee's temptation to defect). The current work tests the relative weights of these elements. Experiment 1 shows that trust increases when costs decrease and benefits increase. The latter finding is critical because increasing the trustor's benefit also means increasing the trustee's temptation to defect. Hence, this finding suggests that egocentrism prevails over perspective-taking. Experiment 2 shows that the trustee's temptation to defect (negatively) affects trust, but only when the trustor's cost and benefit are favorable. Results are interpreted as reflecting a boundedly rational decision process.     

Development of trust and reciprocity in adolescence

We investigate the development of two types of prosocial behavior, trust and reciprocity, as defined using a game-theoretical task that allows investigation of real-time social interaction, among 4 age groups from 9 to 25 years. By manipulating the possible outcome alternatives, we could distinguish among important determinants of trust and reciprocity that are related to the risk and benefit of trusting. The results demonstrate age-related changes in sensitivity to outcome for others from late childhood until late adolescence, with different developmental trajectories for trust and reciprocity and differential sensitivity to risk and benefit for self and others.     

Intergroup trust and reciprocity in strategic interactions: Effects of group decision-making mechanisms

I examined the impact of the consensus-making mechanism, where members reach a common decision via an intra-group discussion, on intergroup trust and reciprocity in a strategic setting. Data from a trust game generated the following results. First, compared to individual decision-makers, consensus groups exhibited (a) lower psychological trust, (b) higher behavioral trust, after controlling for psychological trust, and (c) lower reciprocity. Second, compared to decisions made by group-representatives, who are responsible for unilateral decisions on behalf of their groups, group consensus decisions were more trusting but less reciprocating. Thus, the specific decision-making mechanism adopted by groups in a strategic interaction may profoundly change the nature and the interplay of the interaction. Lastly, results show that the level of behavioral trust is driven by reciprocity expectations, while the level of reciprocity behavior, measured as a proportion of the trust received, does not change systematically with the level of trust experienced.     

Trust and trustworthiness in a sequential bargaining game

We use a two‐person extensive form bargaining game to explore individuals' trusting and reciprocal behavior and how those relate to their scores on a trust survey. In keeping with prior research, we find that the ‘self‐interested’ outcome is rejected by a majority of individuals. People who score high on the trust survey are both trusting and are also trustworthy, in that they reciprocate others' trust. But people with low‐trust scores often exhibit trust but are not trustworthy. These ‘inconsistent trusters’ seem to be interested in exploiting the trust and trustworthiness of others in increasing their own payoff. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

任务类型和性别属性对人际信任的影响

研究应用投资游戏任务及其变式,探讨了任务类型与性别属性对人际交往过程中信任给予和信任维持的影响。24名被试(平均年龄为20.41±1.99)通过轮组,完成了实验一和实验二的投资游戏任务。通过对投资比、返还比及其关系的比较和分析,结果发现:(1)在风险任务中,不同性别信任者的信任给予存在显著性差异,而且信任对象的性别属性对信任者的信任给予也存在显著性影响。(2)在无风险任务中,性别属性对信任对象的信任维持行为不存在显著影响,而信任者的信任给予对信任对象的行为具有显著的预测作用。这一结果表明,性别属性对人际信任的影响,与任务的风险性有关。     

Trust as performance

It is argued that trust is a performative kind and that the evaluative normativity of trust is a special case of the evaluative normativity of performances generally. The view is shown to have advantages over competitor views, e.g., according to which good trusting is principally a matter of good believing (e.g., Hieronymi, 2008; McMyler, 2011), or good affect (e.g., Baier, 1986; Jones, 1996), or good conation (e.g., Holton, 1994). Moreover, the view can be easily extended to explain good (and bad) distrust, where the latter is understood as aimed (narrow-scoped) forbearance from trusting. The overarching framework—which assimilates the evaluative norms of trusting (and distrusting) to performance-theoretic norms—supplies us with an entirely new lens to view traditional philosophical problems about what is involved in trusting and distrusting well and badly, and thus, places our capacity to make progress on problems in this area on a new footing.     

Cooperative,pure, and selfish trusting: Their distinctive effects on the reaction of trust recipients

Three types of trusting have been distinguished conceptually and empirically. In cooperative trusting the trust giver explicitly expects a reaction from the trust recipient that fits with the equality norm. In pure trusting, no explicit expectation is expressed by the giver. In selfish trusting the giver explicitly expects a reaction that benefits himself or herself at the expense of the recipient. We asked whether the three types of trust elicit distinctive reactions from trust recipients. Each participant was paired with a fictitious player who ostensibly enabled him or her to divide money between them. As hypothesized, both cooperative and pure trusting elicited more equal allocations than did selfish trusting. A second hypothesis, that cooperative trust would yield more equal allocations than pure trust, was not supported. Results are discussed in terms of equality norm, self‐interest norm, reciprocity norm, reactance theory, social sanctioning, and the need to comply with others' expectations. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Hidden Cost of Insurance on Cooperation

A common solution to mitigate risk is to buy insurance. Employing the trust game, we find that buying insurance against the risk of betrayal has a hidden cost: trustees are more likely to act opportunistically when trustors choose to be insured against the breach of trust. Supposedly, trustees are less likely to cooperate when trustors buy insurance because choosing insurance implicitly signals that the trustor expects the trustee to behave opportunistically, paradoxically encouraging trustees not to cooperate. These results shed new light on the potential drawbacks of financial safeguards that are intended to minimize the risky nature of trust taking: the presumed safeguard against the risk of betrayal may, under certain circumstances, increase the probability of betrayal. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A social identity approach to trust: interpersonal perception,group membership and trusting behaviour

Trusting behaviour involves relinquishing control over outcomes valuable to the self. Previous research suggests that interpersonal perceptions of trustworthiness are closely related to this behaviour. The present research suggests that the more proximal determinant of trusting behaviour is the expectation that the other will reciprocate. Based on the Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE) model, reciprocity expectations may be created by interpersonal perceptions of trustworthiness or a shared group membership. To investigate this, group membership and individual identifiability were experimentally manipulated (N = 139): When individuals were not identifiable, trusting behaviour was based on expectations of reciprocity inferred from group membership, not on perceived trustworthiness. In contrast, personal identifiability fostered perceptions of trustworthiness for both in‐ and out‐group members. In this case interpersonal trustworthiness enhanced expectations of reciprocity, which in turn increased trusting behaviour. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trust in hybrid human-automated decision-support

Research has examined trust in humans and trust in automated decision support. Although reflecting a likely realization of decision support in high-risk tasks such as personnel selection, trust in hybrid human-automation teams has thus far received limited attention. In two experiments (N₁ = 170, N₂ = 154) we compare trust, trustworthiness, and trusting behavior for different types of decision-support (automated, human, hybrid) across two assessment contexts (personnel selection, bonus payments). We additionally examined a possible trust violation by presenting one group of participants a preselection that included predominantly male candidates, thus reflecting possible unfair bias. Whereas fully-automated decisions were trusted less, results suggest that trust in hybrid decision support was similar to trust in human-only support. Trust violations were not perceived differently based on the type of support. We discuss theoretical (e.g., trust in hybrid support) and practical implications (e.g., keeping humans in the loop to prevent negative reactions).     

On the Emotional Character of Trust

Trustful interaction serves the interests of those involved. Thus, one could reason that trust itself may be analyzed as part of rational, goaloriented action. In contrast, common sense tells us that trust is an emotion and is, therefore, independent of rational deliberation to some extent. I will argue that we are right in trusting our common sense. My argument is conceptual in nature, referring to the common distinction between trust and pure reliance. An emotional attitude may be understood as some general pattern in the way the world or some part of the world is perceived by an individual. Trust may be characterized by such a pattern. I shall focus on two central features of a trusting attitude. First, trust involves a participant attitude (Strawson) toward the person being trusted. Second, a situation of trust is perceived by a trusting person as one in which shared values or norms motivate both his own actions as well as those of the person being trusted. As an emotional attitude, trust is, to some extent, independent of objective information. It determines what a trusting person will believe and how various outcomes are evaluated. Hence, trust is quite different from rational belief and the problem with trust is not adequately met in minimizing risk by supplying extensive information or some mechanism of sanctioning. Trust is an attitude that enables us to cope with risk in a certain way. If we want to promote trustful interaction, we must form our institutions in ways that allow individuals to experience their interest and values as shared and, thus, to develop a trusting attitude.     

To trust or not to trust: social decision‐making in post‐institutionalized,internationally adopted youth

Chronic parental maltreatment has been associated with lower levels of interpersonal trust, and depriving environments have been shown to predict short‐sighted, risk‐averse decision‐making. The present study examined whether a circumscribed period of adverse care occurring only early in life was associated with biases in trust behavior. Fifty‐three post‐institutionalized (PI) youth, adopted internationally on average by 1 year of age, and 33 never‐institutionalized, non‐adopted youth (M_age = 12.9 years) played a trust game. Participants decided whether or not to share coins with a different anonymous peer in each trial with the potential to receive a larger number of coins in return. Trials were presented in blocks that varied in the degree to which the peers behaved in a trustworthy (reciprocal) or untrustworthy (non‐reciprocal) manner. A comparison condition consisted of a computerized lottery with the same choices and probabilistic risk as the peer trials. Non‐adopted comparison youth showed a tendency to share more with peers than to invest in the lottery and tended to maintain their level of sharing across trials despite experiencing trials in which peers failed to reciprocate. In contrast, PI children, particularly those who were adopted over 1 year of age, shared less with peers than they invested in the lottery and quickly adapted their sharing behavior to peers’ responses. These results suggest that PI youth were more mistrusting, more sensitive to both defection and reciprocation, and potentially more accurate in their trusting decisions than comparison youth. Results support the presence of a sensitive period for the development of trust in others, whereby conditions early in life may set long‐term biases in decision‐making.     

Social class and interpersonal trust: Partner's warmth,external threats and interpretations of trust betrayal

The present research investigated the effects of social class on interpersonal trust. In a series of experiments, we showed how the contextualist socio-cognitive tendencies of the lower class and the solipsistic tendencies of the upper class were reflected in their trusting attitudes and behaviors. In Study 1 (N = 491), upper class individuals expressed the same levels of trust towards all partners, while lower class individuals adjusted their trust choices to the affect-rich information about their interaction partner and trusted warm partners more than cold partners. The results of Study 2 (N = 210) showed that when threatened, lower class individuals had generally less trusting attitudes, while upper class members were equally trusting as in a neutral situation. Study 3 (N = 200) revealed that upper class individuals explained a betrayal of their trust with dispositional factors to a higher degree than lower class individuals. We discuss how these differences contribute to perpetuating the disadvantage of the lower class.     

Generating Trust in Congregations: Engagement,Exchange, and Social Networks

The relationship between religion and trust is complex and there is little consensus on why, in general, religious people appear to be more trusting than their unaffiliated peers. Most research on religion and trust focuses on differences between traditions and denominations, which offers rather limited insight into the genesis of trust for religious persons. In this study, we draw on recent theoretical developments in social psychology to explore how specific patterns of social interactions within congregations enhance within‐congregation trust among members to the benefit of both churches and individuals. Using survey data from the Portraits of American Life Study, we find that the positive relationship between religiosity and trust is driven less by religious beliefs or practices and more by particular characteristics of micro‐level processes that occur in churches (e.g., closeness of relationships to religious leaders, density of congregational ties, and both giving and receiving aid from other congregation members). In light of research on social learning and trust, we also discuss the potential benefits of this particularized trust for individuals’ levels of generalized trust.     

Investor's Pessimistic and False Belief About Trustworthiness and Stake Size in Trust Decision1

Trust is a vital element of any society. Previous studies using trust games have provided insight into understandings of trusting behavior. However, investors' behaviors can be confounded by their risk preferences in the game, and little is known about the relationship between stake size and beliefs of others' good intentions underlying trust. We thus used a variant of the trust game and conducted two experiments to examine how stake size affects investors' beliefs about receivers' trustworthiness, with model-based analyses. We showed that, when holding all else equal, investors trusted more, but their expectations of reciprocation declined as stake size increased. However, actual receivers' reciprocation rates showed the opposite trend to investors' pessimistic beliefs. Furthermore, following previous studies in social psychology, we hypothesized that investors' social preferences (social value orientation) moderated the beliefs underlying trust, but they had no explanatory powers in investors' expectations of reciprocation. These results suggest that peoples' naive beliefs about stake size play a more important role in trust decisions than expected.     

When What You Want is What You Get: Pay Dispersion and Communal Sharing Preference

The question of whether pay structures should be compressed or dispersed remains unanswered. We argue that pay dispersion can yield uncertainty regarding others' intentions and behaviors; as a result, individuals take a greater risk trusting their group members as pay spreads widen. Accordingly, we explore the conditions under which individuals are more willing to take this risk by viewing their group members as trustworthy even when pay is dispersed. Specifically, preferences for how relationships and resources should be structured in groups should help to determine when pay dispersion relates to trustworthiness perceptions. We hypothesise that the cross‐level interaction between preferences for communal sharing (Level 1)—that is, the extent to which individuals prefer communal, egalitarian structures in their groups—and pay dispersion (Level 2) is associated with trust perceptions. Data drawn from a sample of university professors support our hypothesised cross‐level interaction, and show that when pay dispersion is greater, individuals perceive their group members as more trustworthy only when they have weak preferences for communal sharing. Our results signify the importance of individual attributes to understanding pay dispersion's effects, and show that trust is fostered when preferences and pay conditions are aligned.