Trust in strangers and friends: The roles of agreeableness, open-mindedness, perspective taking, and trustworthiness

Abstract Limited research has been conducted to better understand the trait predictors of trust in strangers and friends. Therefore, the current study aims to fill this gap and examine whether agreeableness and open-mindedness are indirectly related to trust in strangers and friends via self-focused and other-focused perspective taking, and subsequently via trustworthiness. A convenience sample of 217 Slovaks aged 20–37 years completed self-report scales measuring agreeableness, open-mindedness, self-focused perspective taking, other-focused perspective taking, trustworthiness of strangers, trustworthiness of friends, trust in strangers, and trust in friends. Indirect effects analysis was performed using the PROCESS macro for SPSS. The results revealed that agreeableness and open-mindedness were indirectly related to trust in strangers via either self-focused perspective taking or via other-focused perspective taking, and then via trustworthiness of strangers. Importantly, indirect relationships via other-focused perspective taking were negative, while an indirect relationship via self-focused perspective taking was positive. Additionally, agreeableness showed a direct relationship with trust in friends, and indirect relationships with trust in both strangers and friends only via trustworthiness. These findings imply that investigated trait factors play roles in trust in strangers and friends, although many of these factors seem crucial concerning trust in strangers; they also point out the significance of distinguishing different forms of perspective taking with different antecedents and consequences.