Effect of relationship experience on trust recovery following a breach

Abstract

A violation of trust can have quite different consequences, depending on the nature of the relationship in which the trust breach occurs. In this article, we identify a key relationship characteristic that affects trust recovery: the extent of relationship experience before the trust breach. Across two experiments, this investigation establishes the behavioral effect that greater relationship experience before a trust breach fosters trust recovery. A neuroimaging experiment provides initial evidence that this behavioral effect is possible because of differential activation of two brain systems: while decision making after early trust breaches engages structures of a controlled social cognition system (C-system), specifically the anterior cingulate cortex and lateral frontal cortex, decision making after later trust breaches engages structures of an automatic social cognition system (X-system), specifically the lateral temporal cortex. The present findings make contributions to both social psychological theory and the neurophysiology of trust.T rust is known to facilitate collective undertakings across a variety of contexts (1-3). Unfortunately, few social relationships endure without a violation of trust (i.e., trust breach), and once broken, trust is notoriously hard to reestablish (4-6). This article aims to improve our understanding of the process of trust recovery after a trust breach (7,8). Specifically, we address the question of why certain kinds of relationships recover better from a trust breach than others and focus on the role of prior relationship experience, one of the most basic and fundamental characteristics of social relationships (9). We propose that greater relationship experience before a trust breach facilitates trust recovery. In other words, the longer the relationship history before a trust breach, the more likely is recovery from such a breach. However, if the trust breach occurs in an earlier stage when trust is still partial, tentative, and fragile, we expect trust to be particularly susceptible to enduring damage by a trust breach, suggesting a weaker recovery of trust.Beyond identifying a direct relationship between prebreach experience and postbreach trust levels, we analyze key mechanisms underlying this relationship. We propose that if little relationship experience exists and a trust breach occurs, an individual engages in more conscious learning, complex planning, and increased problem solving with respect to the social relationship. Prior research implies that such cognitive processes may be key to trust recovery after early trust breaches, but this research has not yet provided actual empirical support (7). Furthermore, as relationships mature, they become increasingly habitualized and "taken for granted," fostering reconciliation after a trust breach. This notion is supported by prior literature, which implies that over time trustors tend to develop mental models of their counterpart that provide a basis for habitualized decision making (10) and make a negative deviation (suc...

Trust is heritable, whereas distrust is not

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Power decreases trust in social exchange

“…trust | power | social exchange | dependence | hope U nderstanding the circumstances under which individuals trust other individuals is of enduring interest to social scientists from different backgrounds (1), including sociologists (2), psychologists (3), political scientists (4), and economists (5). Trust is a critical ingredient in successful social exchange (6), but the threat of misplacing one's trust and suffering the detrimental consequences of trust breaches causes people to be very careful in deciding to whom to make themselves vulnerable (7)(8)(9). Thus, researchers have paid considerable attention to the factors that facilitate or hinder trust in various settings (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15).…”

Understanding the Dynamics of the Individual Donor’s Trust Damage in the Philanthropic Sector

“…This research defines the trust damage of the individual donor as a combination of some specific beliefs, including capacity damage, benevolence damage, integrity damage, and predictability damage. Research using repeated Prisoner's Dilemmas demonstrates that ''defections'' (acts of noncooperation that violate trust) are more harmful-inciting distrust and anger and reducing cooperation in subsequent interactions-the earlier they occur in the course of repeated interactions (Schilke et al 2013). This indicates that the degree of trust damage will vary from the mutual interactions.…”