Trust as an expressive rather than an instrumental act

Abstract

Trust involves making oneself vulnerable to another person with the prospect of receiving some benefit in return. Contemporary theoretical accounts of trust among strangers emphasize its instrumental nature. People are assumed to trust to the extent that they can tolerate the risk and are sufficiently optimistic that their trust will be reciprocated. We describe evidence from laboratory economic games showing that this account empirically fails. Participants often trust even though their risk tolerance and social expectations suggest they should not. We propose, instead, that trust is largely an expressive act. People trust because of dynamics that surround the act itself rather than its potential outcomes. Evidence for the expressive nature of trust comes in two forms. First, studies of the emotions surrounding trust indicate that it is significantly predicted by how people feel about the act itself, not how they feel about its potential outcomes. Second, trust rates rise significantly if people are placed in a relationship with another person, no matter how anonymous, fleeting, or minimal that relationship is – presumably because being placed in a relationship evokes social norms that promote trust. We end our discussion by explaining a curious fact that participants grossly underestimate the trustworthiness of others. We also discuss possible motives for reciprocating trust and questions for future research.

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