Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Attributions of Trust and Trustworthiness

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Political Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This study examines whether individuals can accurately predict trust and trustworthiness in others based on their appearance. Using photos and decisions from previous experimental trust games, subjects were asked to view the photos and guess the levels of trust and trustworthiness of the individuals depicted. The results show that subjects had little ability to accurately guess the trust and trustworthiness behavior of others. There is significant heterogeneity in the accuracy of guesses, and errors in guesses are systematically related to the observable characteristics of the photos. Subjects’ guesses appear to be influenced by stereotypes based on the features seen in the photos, such as gender, skin color, or attractiveness. These findings suggest that individuals’ beliefs that they can infer trust and trustworthiness from appearance are unfounded, and that efforts to reduce the impact of stereotypes on inferred trustworthiness may improve the efficiency of trust-based interactions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

All data and reproduction materials are housed in Open Science Framework, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/TPX5M.

Notes

  1. In a few studies the trustee is allowed to send back any amount, including the initial endowment (Johnson & Mislin, 2011). In a number of studies, the trustor is not endowed at all (Glaeser et al., 2000), which is highly consequential for behavior in the game. Aksoy et al. (2018) contrast behavior in the two designs and show that behavior in the standard game (but not the modified game) correlates with survey-based measures of trust. Our study endows both players (as in the original game), and does not allow the transfer of the trustee endowment.

  2. In Wilson and Eckel (2006) a total of 206 subjects were photographed (half as trustors and half as trustors). A random sample of 40 trustors and trustors was chosen for this study. A programming error resulted in an imbalance in the images used. We selected a subset in order to ensure that we had sufficient power to evaluate each image pair with our available budget. The experiment was conducted in the Behavioral Research Lab at Rice University.

  3. All data and reproduction materials are housed in Open Science Framework, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/TPX5M.

  4. The choice of paying for correct guesses was designed to eliminate averaging across guesses. If we had used a scoring rule of some type, then subjects could have been incentivized to guess the center of the distribution to be guaranteed some level of payoff. Perversely under the incentive system used here, if the subject guessed that nothing was sent or returned, and they were correct, they would earn nothing. We find that subjects did guess zero (see Supporting Information, Section II, Fig. 2a and b). Subjects also varied their guesses across photos.

  5. Although subjects in the paired treatment viewed 40 different photographs, they only evaluated 20 images. These are the images of the trustor in the first 10 decisions and the trustee for the second 10 decisions.

  6. Subjects were paid in Experimental Currency Units (ECUs) which had an exchange rate of 2 to 1. The dollar figures given here are in US dollars and not ECUs.

  7. This is in contrast to Eckel and Petrie (2011) who find that purchasing the ability to view a photo is profitable (i.e. allows better guessing about trustworthiness) only when both parties to the game view each others’ pictures. This implies that subjects are better at guessing who will trust THEM, moreso thamn who is trusting in general.

  8. A Kolmorgov-Smirnov test of the equivalence of distributions shows differences between sender and receiver versus paired (sender and receiver, p = 0.24; sender and paired, p = 0.55, receiver and paired, p = 0.45). Likewise a ttest shows that each distribution is significantly different from zero.

  9. We checked to make certain that the selection of photos did not introduce the biased beliefs that we measure in this section. The analysis in the Supplemental Information, Section III, Tables 3a and 3b find no bias in what the photographed subjects chose.

  10. In the Supplemental Information, Section IV we provide estimates for the raw guesses. These estimates do not account for accuracy. In Section V we provide a comparison of models using the subject’s own assessment of the characteristics of the photo and the average assessment by all participants in the study.

  11. Ball et al. (2010) pursue a similar strategy when looking at risk preferences and guesses about others’ risk preferences. They show that physical appearance biases the guesses about others’ preferences. For a sampling of studies that have shown these biases, see Burns (2012), Croson and Gneezy (2009), Scharlemann et al. (2001) and Wilson and Eckel (2006).

  12. It might be the case that “shared identity” matters, as noted by a reviewer. In the Supplemental Information, Section IV, Table 4c, we replicate Table 4, controlling for shared gender and shared race/ethnicity between the observer and the observed photos. We find no effect for these interactions. We suspect that the incentivized task for the subjects trumped the potential for shared identity to impact behavior.

  13. Note that in Scharlemann et al. (2001) both smiling and non-smiling photos of the same person are used in the study, thereby controlling for other characteristics. In the current study only one photo per person is shown, and 66% of these are smiling. Therefore, other factors may obscure the effect of smiling.

  14. In the Supporting Information, Section IV, Table 4d we again include measures for “shared identity.” Again we find no effect for the estimates in Table 5.

References

  • Aksoy, B., Harwell, H., Kovaliukaite, A., & Eckel, C. (2018). Measuring trust: A reinvestigation. Southern Economic Journal, 84(4), 992–1000.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arrow, K. J. (1974). The limits to organizations. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ball, S., Eckel, C. C., & Heracleous, M. (2010). Risk aversion and physical prowess: Prediction, choice and bias. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 41(3), 167–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berg, J., Dickhaut, J., & McCabe, K. (1995). Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behavior, 10(1), 122–142.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonnefon, J. F., Hopfensitz, A., & De Neys, W. (2013). The modular nature of trustworthiness detection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142(1), 143.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonnefon, J. F., Hopfensitz, A., & De Neys, W. (2015). Face-Ism and Kernels of truth in facial inferences. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(8), 421–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bonnefon, J. F., Hopfensitz, A., & De Neys, W. (2017). Can We detect cooperators by looking at their face? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(3), 276–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buchan, N. R., Croson, R. T. A., & Solnick, S. (2008). Trust and gender: An examination of behavior and beliefs in the investment game. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 68(3–4), 466–476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burns, J. (2012). Race, diversity and pro-social behavior in a segmented society. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 81(2), 366–378.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Centorrino, S., Djemai, E., Hopfensitz, A., Milinski, M., & Seabright, P. (2014). Honest signaling in trust interactions: smiles rated as genuine induce trust and signal higher earning opportunities. Evolution and Human Behavior.

  • Croson, R., & Gneezy, U. (2009). Gender differences in preferences. Journal of Economic Literature, 47(2), 448–474.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeBruine, L. M. (2002). Facial resemblance enhances trust. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B-Biological Sciences, 269(1498), 1307–1312.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeSteno, D., Breazeal, C., Frank, R. H., Pizarro, D., Baumann, J., Dickens, L., & Lee, J. J. (2012). Detecting the trustworthiness of novel partners in economic exchange. Psychological Science, 23, 1549–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eagly, A. H., & Mladinic, A. (1989). Gender stereotypes and attitudes toward women and men. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15(4), 543–58.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eckel, C. C. (2007). People playing games: The human face of experimental economics. Southern Economic Journal, 73(4), 841–857.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eckel, C. C., & Petrie, R. (2011). Face value. American Economic Review, 101(4), 1497–1513.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eckel, C. C., & Wilson., R. K. (2008) Initiating trust: the conditional effects of sex and skin shade among strangers. In Working Paper, Political Science, Rice University.

  • Efferson, C., & Vogt, S. (2013). Viewing men’s faces does not lead to accurate predictions of trustworthiness. Scientific Reports, 3(1), 1–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P. (2003). Emotions revealed: Recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life, Times Books. Henry Holt and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fershtman, C., & Gneezy, U. A. (2001). Discrimination in a segmented society: An experimental approach. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(1), 351–377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foo, Y. Z., Sutherland, C. A. M., Burton, N. S., Nakagawa, S., & Rhodes, G. (2021). Accuracy in facial trustworthiness impressions: Kernel of truth or modern physiognomy? A meta-analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 01461672211048110.

  • Frank, R. (1988). Passions within reason: The strategic role of the emotions. W. W. Norton & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fridlund, A. J. (1994). Human facial expression: An evolutionary view. Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glaeser, E. L., Laibson, D. I., Scheinkman, J. A., & Soutter, C. L. (2000). Measuring trust. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(3), 811–846.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hancock, P. J. B., & DeBruine, L. M. (2003). What’s a face worth: Noneconomic factors in game playing. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26(2), 162.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hassin, R., & Trope, Y. (2000). Facing faces: Studies on the cognitive aspects of physiognomy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(5), 837.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huddy, L., & Terkildsen, N. (1993). Gender stereotypes and the perception of male and female candidates. American Journal of Political Science, 37(1), 119–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jaeger, B., Evans, A. M., Stel, M., & van Beest, I. (2019). Explaining the persistent influence of facial cues in social decision-making. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(6), 1008.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jaeger, B., Oud, B., Williams, T., Krumhuber, E., Fehr, E., & Engelmann, J. (2020). Trustworthiness detection from faces: does reliance on facial impressions pay off?.

  • Johnson, M. H., Dziurawiec, S., Ellis, H., & Morton, J. (1991). Newborns preferential tracking of face-like stimuli and its subsequent decline. Cognition, 40(1), 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson, N. D., & Mislin, A. A. (2011). Trust games: A meta-analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32(5), 865–889.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lount, R. B., Jr., & Pettit, N. C. (2012). The social context of trust: The role of status. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 117(1), 15–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marzi, T., Righi, S., Ottonello, S., Cincotta, M., & Viggiano, M. P. (2014). Trust at first sight: Evidence from Erps. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9, 63–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olivola, C. Y., Funk, F., & Todorov, A. (2014). Social attributions from faces bias human choices. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(11), 566–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olivola, C. Y., & Todorov, A. (2010). Fooled by first Impressions? Reexamining the diagnostic value of appearance-based inferences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(2), 315–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pandey, G., & Zayas, V. (2021). What is a face worth? Facial attractiveness biases experience-based monetary decision-making. British Journal of Psychology, 112(4), 934–963.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Porter, S., England, L., Juodis, M., Ten Brinke, L., & Wilson, K. (2008). Is the face a window to the soul? Investigation of the accuracy of intuitive judgments of the trustworthiness of human faces. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 40(3), 171–77.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rezlescu, C., Duchaine, B., Olivola, C. Y., & Chater, N. (2012). Unfakeable facial configurations affect strategic choices in trust games with or without information about past behavior. PLoS ONE, 7(3), e34293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scharlemann, J. P. W., Eckel, C. C., Kacelnik, A., & Wilson, R. K. (2001). The value of a smile: Game theory with a human face. Journal of Economic Psychology, 22(5), 617–640.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, B., McGrimmon, T., & Irwin, K. (2007). Are blacks really less trusting than whites? Revisiting the race and trust question. Social Forces, 86(2), 525–552.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith, F. G., Debruine, L. M., Jones, B. C., Krupp, D. B., Welling, L. L. M., & Conway, C. A. (2009). Attractiveness qualifies the effect of observation on trusting behavior in an economic game. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30(6), 393–397.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tingley, D. (2014). Face-off: Facial features and strategic choice. Political Psychology, 35(1), 35–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Todorov, A., Baron, S. G., & Oosterhof, N. N. (2008). Evalualting face trustworthiness: A model based approach. SCAN, 3, 119–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Todorov, A., Funk, F., & Olivola, C. Y. (2015a). Response to Bonnefon et al.: Limited ‘Kernels of truth’in facial inferences.

  • Todorov, A., Olivola, C. Y., Dotsch, R., & Mende-Siedlecki, P. (2015b). Social attributions from faces: Determinants, consequences, accuracy, and functional significance. Annual Review of Psychology, 66(1), 519–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Todorov, A., Pakrashi, M., & Oosterhof, N. N. (2009). Evaluating faces on trustworthiness after minimal time exposure. Social Cognition, 27(6), 813–833.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tognetti, A., Berticat, C., Raymond, M., & Faurie, C. (2013). Is cooperativeness readable in static facial features? An inter-cultural approach. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(6), 427–432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tuk, M. A., Verlegh, P. W. J., Smidts, A., & Wigboldus, D. H. J. (2009). Interpersonal relationships moderate the effect of faces on person judgments. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(5), 757–767.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van't Wout, M., & Sanfey, A. G. (2008). Friend or foe: The effect of implicit trustworthiness judgments in social decision-making. Cognition, 108(3), 796–803.

  • Vogt, S., Efferson, C., & Fehr, E. (2013). Can we see inside? Predicting strategic behavior given limited information. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34, 258–264.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, E. U., Blais, A.-R., & Betz, N. E. (2002). A domain-specific risk-attitude scale: Measuring risk perceptions and risk behaviors. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 15(4), 263–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Making up your mind after a 100-Ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, R. K., & Eckel, C. C. (2006). Judging a book by its cover: Beauty and expectations in the trust game. Political Research Quarterly, 59(2), 189–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, R. K., & Eckel, C. C. (2011). Trust and social exchange. In J. N. Druckman, D. P. Green, J. H. Kuklinski, & A. Lupia (Eds.), The handbook of experimental political science. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yu, M., Saleem, M., & Gonzalez, C. (2014). Developing trust: First impressions and experience. Journal of Economic Psychology, 43, 16–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the thoughtful reviewers who helped improve this manuscript. We benefited from audience comments when these results were presented at the 2014 North American Economic Science Association Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and the 2015 Texas Experimental Association Symposium (TExAS) in College Station, Texas. We also acknowledge support by the National Science Foundation (SES 0318116; SES-0318180 and SES-0618226). NSF is not responsible for any findings reported here. All data and code are housed in Open Science Framework, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/TPX5M .

Funding

National Science Foundation (SES 0318116) “Collaborative Research on Trust, Race, Framing and Institutions.”

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Rice University, MS 24, Houston, TX, 77251-1892, USA

    Rick K. Wilson

  2. Department of Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77845, USA

    Catherine C. Eckel

Authors
  1. Rick K. Wilson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Catherine C. Eckel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rick K. Wilson.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest with respect to this work.

Ethical Approval

The research involved human subjects and was approved by the IRB (“Predicting Allocations in Asymmetrical Bargaining Games Using Gender and Ethnicity as Cues”—Rice IRB#100104.).

Informed Consent

All subjects gave informed consent.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (DOCX 7774 kb)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wilson, R.K., Eckel, C.C. Attributions of Trust and Trustworthiness. Polit Behav (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09855-6

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09855-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation