Trustworthiness: an adaptationist account

IF 3 1区 心理学 Q1 BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES Evolution and Human Behavior Pub Date : 2025-01-01 DOI:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2024.106648
Laureon A. Merrie , Jaimie Arona Krems , Daniel Sznycer , Nina N. Rodriguez
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Abstract

The concept of trustworthiness plays a role in the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of friendships, marriages, and cooperative relationships from small to large scales. Here, we analyze trustworthiness under the assumption that such concepts evolved to guide action adaptively. Intuition and research suggest that actors trust targets who have not engaged in betrayals. However, this perspective fails to capture certain real-world behaviors (e.g., when two people cheating on their spouses enter a relationship with each other and expect mutual fidelity). Evolutionary task analysis suggests that trustworthiness is structured to help actors address challenges of extending trust, where actors may gain or lose from doing so. In six experiments with American adults (N = 1718), we test the hypothesis that trustworthiness tracks not only (i) whether targets refrain from betraying trust when given opportunities, but also (ii) the impact of betrayal on the actor. Data generally support this hypothesis across relationships (friendships, romantic, professional): Actors deem non-betrayers more trustworthy than betrayers, but also deem betrayers more trustworthy when betrayals benefit actors. Trustworthiness may incline actors to trust to those who refrain from betraying others—a potent signal of reluctance to betray oneself—while also favoring those who betray others if it serves oneself.
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来源期刊
Evolution and Human Behavior
Evolution and Human Behavior 生物-行为科学
CiteScore
8.30
自引率
9.80%
发文量
62
审稿时长
82 days
期刊介绍: Evolution and Human Behavior is an interdisciplinary journal, presenting research reports and theory in which evolutionary perspectives are brought to bear on the study of human behavior. It is primarily a scientific journal, but submissions from scholars in the humanities are also encouraged. Papers reporting on theoretical and empirical work on other species will be welcome if their relevance to the human animal is apparent.
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