How do cultural lay beliefs affect trust decisions? The dynamics of lay beliefs and their effects on trust across cultures in e-commerce platforms

Purpose Trust has previously been studied in relation to trustee characteristics (e.g. the trustee’s integrity), the social structure in which trust occurs (e.g. the availability of social monitoring), and trustor characteristics (e.g. the trustor’s culture). While past research has demonstrated that a trustor’s culture can influence trust decisions, the reasons behind and mechanisms driving these differences remain unclear. The current set of four cross-cultural studies aims to address this research gap. Design/methodology/approach The current set of studies utilized experimental designs and mediation analyses to uncover how cultural lay beliefs influence trust patterns across cultures in e-commerce platforms. Findings The findings suggest that Americans tend to rely on individual integrity trust cues. In contrast, Mainland Chinese rely on social monitoring and trust cues in e-commerce transactions. Importantly, these studies utilize motivated cognition – specifically, the cultural belief in agency – to explain the differing emphasis on these trust cues across the two cultures. In conclusion the studies demonstrated the causal influence of cultural beliefs in agnecy on one's trust decisions. Originality/value The current set of studies is the first to use cultural beliefs of agency to understand cross-cultural differences in trust patterns on e-commerce platforms. The results provide important theoretical and practical insights into strategic marketing and planning.