Trust Judgments Research Articles

‘I do not trust any of them anymore’: Institutional distrust and corrective practices in pro-asylum activism in Finland

Although there is extensive research on how institutional trust and distrust play out in the forms political participation takes, the existing research lacks thorough analysis on what trust and distrust actually consist of, that is, how individuals evaluate institutions as trustworthy or not and what consequences this evaluation has for individuals and their relation to the state more broadly. Drawing on qualitative research on Finnish citizens who engage in pro-asylum activism, we examine how institutional distrusting evolves as a reflexive process. By analysing citizens’ trust judgements on institutional practices and actions that follow, we argue that distrust in institutions enhances activists’ attempts to engage in corrective practices, in other words taking over the functions of institutions when noticing mistakes or unfairness in institutional practices. Corrective practices reinforce activists’ distrust in the asylum-related institutions and make them question the ‘myth’ of Finland as an equal and inclusive country. Engaging in corrective practices is emotionally and economically taxing. Despite negative consequences of institutional distrust, activists continue their work indicating that they continue to trust the democratic system in Finland and its capability to absorb their claims in the long run. Institutional distrust and generalised trust can then coexist.

Trust, confidence, familiarity, and support for land-based recirculating aquaculture facilities.

Surveys in three U.S. localities (n=523) with proposed or existing land-based aquaculture facilities probed trust's relationship with perceived net benefits and public intentions to cooperate with siting of this novel technology. The trust, confidence, and cooperation (TCC) model posits that shared values shape willingness to be vulnerable to others (trust), while past performance shapes certainty that others will behave as expected (confidence). Trust affects confidence given moral outweighs performance information, possibly varying by familiarity. Other research suggests that trust shapes benefit and risk perceptions, which drive cooperation (defined here by potentially observable behavior: voting on siting, trying to influence government decisions directly or through citizen groups, and buying or eating facility fish). Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that a two-factor model fit the trust/confidence measures better than a one-factor model or a two-factor model without inter-factor correlation, indicating (despite a strong association of trust and confidence) that they are empirically distinct. Path analyses suggested that trust had stronger direct effects on cooperation than did confidence, reflecting the TCC notion that moral information underlying trust judgments is more influential, and stronger indirect effects through benefit-risk judgments. Model fit was better than if the benefit-risk mediator was omitted. Trust in government had a small direct effect on cooperation and confidence, but a large effect on trust in the corporation, and model fit was much worse if any of these paths was omitted. Low familiarity with the project lowered both model fit and trust-confidence association. We discuss implications for risk analysis theory and practice.

Beyond the features: The role of consistency in impressions of trust

To be successful in social life, perceivers need to form impressions of other people's trustworthiness. Current models of this process emphasize the role of specific descriptive content–individual verbal and visual features determining trust impressions. In contrast, we describe three lines of our research showing that trust impressions also depend on consistency–a sense of fit–between features. The first line demonstrates that consistency of brief verbal characterizations increases trust judgments. The second line shows that trust judgments and behaviors are boosted by incidental consistency between the foreground and background of visual scenes. The third line observes that consistency between facial features enhances impressions of trustworthiness. In all these studies, consistency (measured via subjective ratings, reaction times, and physiological measures) positively and uniquely predicted trust judgments. Overall, our results, and related findings, show that trust impressions are not a simple sum of the contributing parts, but reflect a “gestalt.” We theoretically locate these findings in frameworks emphasizing the role of fluency, predictive coding, and coherence in social cognition.

At the Heart of Trust: Understanding the Integral Relationship Between Emotion and Trust

Trust and emotion have been among the most influential and frequently studied constructs in organizational behavior over the last two decades. Although emotion would seem to be integral to interpersonal trust, it has played a minor part in the literature. This article is intended to advance understanding of emotion’s role in shaping trust judgments to help bring this concept into the central conversation on trust within organizations. Our paper begins with a review of existing research to help understand how emotion fits within the nomological network of trust and to identify some of the key insights from empirical research. The review suggests emotion impacts trust in two fundamentally different ways, based on independent streams of research, by how it is experienced as a trustor and expressed by the trustee. We provide a conceptual model that integrates these different perspectives as well as brings in key ideas which are absent from research on organizational trust: (a) using a validated and more sophisticated model of trust and trustworthiness will add greater insight into how emotion impacts trust, (b) experienced and expressed emotions jointly and interactively affect trust, (c) trust and emotion operate at multiple levels of analysis, including dyadic and network, and (d) trust and emotion change over time as a function of each other. We conclude that there is much opportunity for future research on trust and emotion, and suggest future directions.

The primacy of corporate brand trust for new market entrants

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to test if the order in which potential customers receive company related information and product related information about a new brand can influence their trust and purchase intentions towards that brand. The empirical context is when both product and company are new to a market and share a brand name.Design/methodology/approachTwo experiments, each involving a different product type, are used to test whether higher trust and purchase intentions towards a new brand are likely when company related information is provided first compared to when product related information is provided first.FindingsCompany related information is more diagnostic than product related information and carries more weight in initial consumer trust judgements particularly when it is evaluated first. There is a similar primacy effect on purchase intentions but one mediated by initial trust. The effect is more pronounced for product types that involve a higher perceived risk when buying.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper adds to our understanding of the respective roles of corporate and product communication in the process of brand trust formation for newly launched brands by evidencing and explaining primacy effects related to the greater diagnosticity of corporate brand information.Practical implicationsMarket entrants should communicate information about their company before promoting their products.Originality/valueWhile prior work has shown that both company and product related information can influence customers’ trust towards a new brand, there has been no assessment of the benefits from ordering these communications. The focus here is then on the processes involved in brand trust formation, rather than on identifying specific antecedents of brand trust.

How Trainees Come to Trust Supervisors in Workplace-Based Assessment: A Grounded Theory Study.

PurposeIn competency-based medical education, workplace-based assessment provides trainees with an opportunity for guidance and supervisors the opportunity to judge the trainees’ clinical practice. Learning from assessment is enhanced when trainees reveal their thinking and are open to critique, which requires trust in the assessor. If supervisors knew more about how trainees come to trust them in workplace-based assessment, they could better engender trainee trust and improve trainees’ learning experience.MethodFrom August 2018 to September 2019, semistructured interviews were conducted with 17 postgraduate anesthesia trainees across Australia and New Zealand. The transcripts were analyzed using constructivist grounded theory methods sensitized by a sociocultural view of learning informed by Wenger’s communities of practice theory.ResultsParticipants described a continuum from a necessary initial trust to an experience-informed dynamic trust. Trainees assumed initial trust in supervisors based on accreditation, reputation, and a perceived obligation of trustworthiness inherent in the supervisor’s role. With experience and time, trainees’ trust evolved based on supervisor actions. Deeper levels of trainee trust arose in response to perceived supervisor investment and allowed trainees to devote more emotional and cognitive resources to patient care and learning rather than impression management. Across the continuum from initial trust to experience-informed trust, trainees made rapid trust judgments that were not preceded by conscious deliberation; instead, they represented a learned “feel for the game.”ConclusionsWhile other factors are involved, our results indicate that the trainee behavior observed in workplace-based assessment is a product of supervisor invitation. Supervisor trustworthiness and investment in trainee development invite trainees to work and present in authentic ways in workplace-based assessment. This authentic engagement, where learners “show themselves” to supervisors and take risks, creates assessment for learning.

Trust, Governance, and the Covid-19 Pandemic: an Explainer using Longitudinal Data from the United Kingdom.

Crises like the Covid‐19 pandemic place an added premium on the social contract underpinning principal‐agent relations in representative democracies, which relies, at a fundamental level, on conditional trust judgements by those without power in those with decision‐making authority to act in their better interests. Existing studies of political trust during the pandemic suggest that it has been both a symptom of government activity as well as a cause of its success or failure. Presenting original longitudinal data collected from UK citizens at the start of the pandemic and again twenty months later, the article teases apart these dynamics and their implications. It shows, for example, that the public became less trusting and more distrusting of politicians during this unique moment, and that these trends are strongly linked to performance evaluations of the UK government as well as public compliance with mandatory and non‐mandatory policies such as vaccination and mask wearing.

Focusing on different informant characteristics by situation: The dimensions of benevolence and competence in children's trust judgment

AbstractChildren use informant characteristics, such as competence or benevolence, in trust judgment. Previous studies have examined the characteristics that children prioritize in trust judgment, but findings have been conflicting. Since people possess and tap into each characteristic in their daily lives as the situation demands, children may adjust the characteristics that they choose to rely on depending on the specific situation rather than always prioritizing either of the characteristics. Thus, the present study investigated children's trust judgment in different situations requiring either competence or benevolence. Additionally, children's preference for competence or benevolence was examined to explore its effect on trust judgment. Results showed that children were more likely to select a competent rather than a benevolent person in situations requiring competence and vice versa in situations requiring benevolence. Children preferred the benevolent person rather than the competent person; such preference did not appear to affect their selection of informants across various situations. In summary, children might focus on the different characteristics of the informant in accordance with the situation. Their preference for benevolence might relate to a preference for prosociality. This, in turn, could relate to enhanced sensitivity to benevolence in early childhood.

Gender differences in interpersonal trust: Disclosure behavior, benevolence sensitivity and workplace implications

Across four studies (N = 4,727), we investigate gender differences in interpersonal trust in work relationships. Drawing on gendered socialization experiences, we propose that feeling able to engage in self-disclosure (disclosure-based trust) is a more fundamental aspect of interpersonal trust for women than for men. Because self-disclosure entails social and emotional risks, we further expect and find that female trustors are more sensitive to others’ benevolence when forming interpersonal trust judgments. Lastly, we show that these gender differences in disclosure-based trust and benevolence sensitivity are associated with divergent responses to benevolent others. Specifically, we test a moderated mediation model and find that benevolent supervisors are associated with higher quality supervisor relationships and greater well-being for women than for men, mediated through higher levels of disclosure-based trust. We discuss the implications of these findings for work relationships and career outcomes.

How can you trust Artificial Intelligence Systems? Objective, Subjective and Intersubjective parameters of Trust

The article studies the most urgent problem of artificial intelligence (AI) - the development of a methodology for assessing trust in AI systems. A universal range of assessment is proposed: objective, subjective and intersubjective parameters. When studying the objective parameters of trust assessment, a formal definition of AI is introduced to increase the validity of trust judgments. When studying subjective parameters as the basis of expert evaluation indicators, their internal logical inconsistency is revealed along with demonstrating the significance of these parameters for analyzing the success and safety of methods for computer simulation of cognitive functions. When studying the intersubjective parameters of trust, a unified format of trust data is proposed, an interdisciplinary organization of monitoring trust in AI systems is considered, and the main blocks of an expert system project are formed.

Who Do I (Dis)Trust and Monitor for Ethical Misconduct? Status, Power, and the Structural Paradox.

A wealth of research documents the critical role of trust for social exchange and cooperative behavior. The ability to inspire trust in others can often be elusive, and distrust can have adverse interpersonal and ethical consequences. Drawing from the literature on social hierarchy and interpersonal judgments, the current research explores the predictive role of a structural paradox between high power and low status in identifying the actors most likely to be distrusted and monitored for ethical misconduct. Across four studies and an internal meta-analysis, we found that the structural paradox was associated with distrust-related judgments and behaviors. In Study 1, high power-low status actors were judged as less trustworthy. In Studies 2 and 3, high power-low status actors were sent less money in a trust game, an effect fully mediated by feelings of dislike. Study 4 revealed that high power-low status actors were more likely to be monitored for cheating, an effect partially mediated by trust judgments. These findings contribute to business ethics research by identifying the structural paradox of high power-low status as a salient contextual influence impacting observers’ distrust and monitoring dynamics. Implications for reducing observers’ level of distrust of high power-low status actors are discussed.

35.2 Trust and Childhood Maltreatment: Evidence of Bias in Appraisal of Unfamiliar Faces

Child maltreatment is associated with poorer social functioning and increased risk of mental health problems in adolescence and adulthood, but the processes underlying these associations remain unclear. Although crucial for establishing and maintaining relationships, trust judgments have not been experimentally investigated in children who have experienced abuse and neglect. A community-based sample of 75 children and adolescents aged 8 to 16 years with maltreatment documented on the basis of social services records, and a group of 70 peers selected to be of similar age, cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, gender, and ethnicity, took part in a facial trustworthiness judgment task. Children judged 10 computer-generated facial stimuli with each identity at 1 SD increments from –3 to +3 SD from the mean along a computationally modeled trustworthiness dimension. A generalized-linear multilevel model (GLMM) with a probit link function was carried out to estimate parameters at the group level while assigning random effects to the face identities. The bias (corresponding to the level of trustworthiness at which the child was equally likely to respond “trustworthy” or “not trustworthy”) was significantly greater in the group of children with documented histories of maltreatment (95% CI, 0.79-2.36) than in children without maltreatment histories (95% CI, –0.48 to 0.28). This study provides experimental evidence that children and adolescents with documented maltreatment perceive others as less trustworthy than their peers. Given that facial trustworthiness judgments have been linked to approach and avoidance, over time, alterations in trust processing may disrupt the development of social bonds and contribute to “social thinning” (a reduction in the extent and quality of social relationships), leaving children more vulnerable to environmental stressors, increasing the risk of mental health difficulties.

Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Associations Among Children's Interpersonal Trust, Reputation for Trustworthiness, and Relationship Closeness.

Interpersonal trust plays a crucial role in the formation and maintenance of social relationships. The present cross-sectional and longitudinal research examines the development of interpersonal trust judgments with reference to (1) the trustee’s reputation for trustworthiness, and (2) the nature of the trustor’s relationship closeness with the trustee. There were 194 7- to 13-year-olds who participated in the first wave of the study, and 107 of those individuals also participated in two subsequent waves across a 2-year period. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal results showed that with age, reputation for trustworthiness becomes less important and relationship closeness become more important. We also found that relationship closeness played a greater role in interpersonal trust evaluations for girls than for boys. These findings indicate that the way children make trust evaluations becomes increasingly relationship-specific over time and is more relationship-specific for girls than for boys.

Trust and childhood maltreatment: evidence of bias in appraisal of unfamiliar faces.

Child maltreatment is associated with poorer social functioning and increased risk of mental health problems in adolescence and adulthood, but the processes underlying these associations remain unclear. Although crucial for establishing and maintaining relationships, trust judgements have not been experimentally investigated in children who have experienced abuse and neglect. A community-based sample of 75 children aged 8-16 years with maltreatment documented on the basis of social services records, and a group of 70 peers matched on age, gender, cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity took part in the study. Children completed a trustworthiness face-judgement task in which they appraised the trustworthiness of unfamiliar facial stimuli varying along a computationally modelled trustworthiness dimension. In line with clinical observations that childhood maltreatment is associated with an atypical pattern of trust processing, children with maltreatment experience were significantly less likely than their peers to rate unfamiliar faces as trustworthy. Moreover, they were more variable in their trust attributions than their peers. The study provides compelling experimental evidence that children with documented maltreatment perceive others as less trustworthy than their peers and are less consistent in their estimates of trustworthiness in others. Over time, alterations in trust processing may disrupt the development of social bonds and contribute to 'social thinning' (a reduction in the extent and quality of social relationships), leaving children more vulnerable to environmental stressors, increasing risk of mental health difficulties.

Group membership moderates the process of making trust judgments based on facial cues

ABSTRACT Trust is a foundation of interpersonal communication. Faces have a significant impact on trust judgments, and separate research demonstrates that group membership also influences trust judgments. However, it remains unclear whether and how group membership moderates the effect of face trustworthiness on trust judgments and investment decisions. In the present research, two experiments were conducted to explore the moderating effect of group membership (i.e., in-group vs. out-group) on perceptions of facial trustworthiness and trust judgments. Results showed that participants invested significantly more money on trials with trustworthy faces than trials with untrustworthy faces. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between group membership and facial trustworthiness; the investment difference between trustworthy faces and untrustworthy faces was greater for trials with in-group member faces than out-group member faces. These findings indicate that top-down and bottom-up cues jointly influence behavioral decisions.

Affective Polarization in Political and Nonpolitical Settings

AbstractWe seek to understand the extent to which affective polarization is driven by in-group love or out-group hate and whether it varies across context. The answer may, in turn, allow us to evaluate how well the fundamental premises of social identity theory mesh with different manifestations of affective polarization. Using an experiment to analyze partisans’ trust judgments, we find that the amount of affective polarization and the dominant mechanism underlying it varies by context—whether political or nonpolitical. We find that affective polarization is nearly twice as strong in political settings as in nonpolitical settings. In addition, although affective polarization reflects a blend of both in-party love and out-party hate in both contexts, we find that in-party love is the more dominant source of polarization in nonpolitical settings while out-party hate is the more dominant source in political settings. The latter finding causes us to question how well-suited social identity theory is for understanding polarization in the political sphere.

Care to trust? Gender and trust in leaders during the Coronavirus pandemic

ABSTRACT There has been praise of how female leaders have handled the Coronavirus pandemic relative to their male counterparts by presenting a more “caring” leadership. Of similar coverage has been the role of public trust for how successful governments have been in containing outbreaks. In this paper, we build on these two literatures to understand different determinants of trust during the pandemic between men and women. Following social role theory, we argue that female citizens’ trust judgements are more likely to be driven by the perception that leaders are more caring than are men, whilst men's judgements are more likely to be driven by competence judgements than women's. We test this argument using original survey data from three countries. We find that this relationship holds in the United States, but not the United Kingdom or Italy. This adds to variation in gender gaps in the USA and Europe; at the same time, it also suggests that the propensity for women to be less trusting than men is not down to (perceived) leadership traits.

Evaluating Effective Connectivity of Trust in Human-Automation Interaction: A Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) Study.

Using dynamic causal modeling (DCM), we examined how credibility and reliability affected the way brain regions exert causal influence over each other-effective connectivity (EC)-in the context of trust in automation. Multiple brain regions of the central executive network (CEN) and default mode network (DMN) have been implicated in trust judgment. However, the neural correlates of trust judgment are still relatively unexplored in terms of the directed information flow between brain regions. Sixteen participants observed the performance of four computer algorithms, which differed in credibility and reliability, of the system monitoring subtask of the Air Force Multi-Attribute Task Battery (AF-MATB). Using six brain regions of the CEN and DMN commonly identified to be activated in human trust, a total of 30 (forward, backward, and lateral) connection models were developed. Bayesian model averaging (BMA) was used to quantify the connectivity strength among the brain regions. Relative to the high trust condition, low trust showed unique presence of specific connections, greater connectivity strengths from the prefrontal cortex, and greater network complexity. High trust condition showed no backward connections. Results indicated that trust and distrust can be two distinctive neural processes in human-automation interaction-distrust being a more complex network than trust, possibly due to the increased cognitive load. The causal architecture of distributed brain regions inferred using DCM can help not only in the design of a balanced human-automation interface design but also in the proper use of automation in real-life situations.

Evaluation method of trust degree of distribution IoT terminal equipment based on information entropy

Power distribution Internet of Things terminal equipment is vulnerable to multiple security threats, such as identity disguise, information theft, data tampering. Traditional security methods cannot resist internal network attacks from compromised terminals. The trust evaluation system is an effective mechanism to protect power distribution IoT terminals from internal attacks. This paper proposes a trust evaluation method based on information entropy for the trust problem of power distribution Internet of Things communication terminal. First, the direct trust value is estimated by the model based on the reputation of exponential distribution, and then the direct trust value is updated by the sliding window and forgetting factor. According to the entropy theory, the uncertainty of the direct trust value is measured, and the indirect trust value is introduced to make up for the inaccuracy of the direct trust judgment, and the judgment accuracy is improved through the comprehensive evaluation of the direct trust value and indirect trust value. Experimental simulations show that the method in this paper can effectively resist switch attacks and collusion attacks. At the same time, the method proposed in this paper can better evaluate malicious and normal terminals than binomial trust management and trust evaluation based on beta distribution.

4~6岁幼儿基于情景的选择性信任判断的发展特点

4~6岁幼儿基于情景的选择性信任判断的发展特点