Abstract
Research suggests that people behave more cooperatively towards those who smile and less cooperatively towards those with personality pathology. Here, we integrated these two lines of research to model the combined effects of smiles and personality pathology on trust. In two experiments, participants read vignettes portraying a person with either borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, or no personality pathology. These portrayals were paired with a brief video clip that showed a person with either a neutral expression or a smile. Participants then played a Trust game with the "person" presented using each vignette and video clip combination. In Experiment 1, rates of trust were lower in response to the borderline and antisocial personality disorder vignettes compared with the control vignette. Interestingly, the effect of smiles was dependent upon personality. Although participants were more trusting of smiling confederates portrayed as having borderline personality disorder or no pathology, they were less trusting of confederates portrayed as having antisocial personality disorder if they smiled. In Experiment 2, run with a second set of personality vignettes, rates of trust were lower in response to both personality disorder vignettes and higher in response to smiles with no significant interaction. Together, these results suggest that information regarding both the current emotional state as well as the personality traits of a partner are important for creating trust.
Highlights
We aimed to examine trust to further extend our previous research on personality pathology, facial expression, cooperation, and bargaining
To examine the potential effects of varying the presentation of personality pathology, we modified the personality disorder vignettes in a second experiment to portray another phenotype with several defining features of each personality disorder functioning in a community setting
We hypothesized that confederate trustees whose descriptions contained features of either borderline or antisocial personality disorder would be judged as less trustworthy and given smaller investments from participant investors in comparison to those described as having no pathology
Summary
Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process; we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Data Availability Statement: Our data are publicly available here: https://osf.io/yzrvs/?view_only= 8878cda15a6242599fd3fbde8de40454.
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