Learning to distrust: One trust experience changes the expected value of trust

Do people learn from a single trust interaction? Using internal meta-analyses with twenty-one studies ( N = 11,899), we find that feedback about the trustworthiness of one interaction partner influences the decision to trust a new person in a subsequent interaction. People are more likely to trust a new individual after positive feedback about an initial partner and less likely to trust a new individual after negative feedback about an initial partner. A single piece of feedback influences the expected value of trust by changing both the perceived probability that an individual in the relevant population is trustworthy as well as the expected emotional consequences (i.e., utility) of trust. Both mechanisms may help explain why people learn from a single trust interaction. We further find that trust behavior is most affected by exploitation: People are particularly unlikely to trust a new person when they previously trusted an untrustworthy person. These findings suggest that people rely on past experiences to guide trust decisions with new individuals, leading people to learn to distrust.