Trusting Kind Friends and Fair Leaders: How Relationships Affect the Antecedents of Trust

Abstract

While a robust literature explores the antecedents of trust in organizations, thus far, none has addressed how and why the nature of trust differs across relationships. In the present research, we demonstrate that the nature of trust in friends and leaders is fundamentally different. Specifically, trust in friends relies on perceptions of benevolence, whereas trust in leaders relies on integrity. We establish these results across one pilot study, three main experiments, and three replications (total N = 1387) that explore how individuals trust targets as friends and leaders subsequent to observing targets resolve ethical dilemmas that involve tradeoffs between benevolence and integrity. Across our studies, we use both attitudinal and behavioral measures of trust, and a range of ethical dilemmas. This research deepens our understanding of both trust as well as the relationship between morality, hierarchy, and relationship formation.