What Does the Brain Tell Us About Trust and Distrust? Evidence from a Functional Neuroimaging Study

Abstract

Determining whom to trust and whom to distrust is a major decision in impersonal IT-enabled exchanges. Despite the potential role of both trust and distrust in impersonal exchanges, the information systems literature has primarily focused on trust, alas paying relatively little attention to distrust. Given the importance of studying both trust and distrust, this study aims to shed light on the nature, dimensionality, distinction, and relationship, and relative effects of trust and distrust on economic outcomes in the context of impersonal IT-enabled exchanges between buyers and sellers in online marketplaces. This study uses functional neuroimaging (fMRI) tools to complement psychometric measures of trust and distrust by observing the location, timing, and level of brain activity that underlies trust and distrust and their underlying dimensions. The neural correlates of trust and distrust are identified when subjects interact with four experimentally manipulated seller 1 David Gefen was the accepting senior editor for this paper. Dennis Galletta served as the associate editor. The figures and appendices for this paper are located on the "Online Supplements" section of the MIS Quarterly's website (http://www.misq.org). profiles that differ on their level of trust and distrust. The results show that trust and distrust activate different brain areas and have different effects, helping explain why trust and distrust are distinct constructs associated with different neurological processes. Implications for the nature, distinction and relationship, dimensionality, and effects of trust and distrust are discussed.

The dimensionality of trust-relevant constructs in four institutional domains: results from confirmatory factor analyses

“…They consistently found a twodimensional structure of responses reflecting generally trusting views about characteristics of the institution (the government is caring, fair, competent, and transparent or open) and skeptical distrusting views about "how risk policies are brought about or enacted" (p. 961)-that is, skepticism or distrust regarding institutional actions reflecting a lack of integrity, credibility, and reliability. Their findings of positive and negative trustworthiness factors are consistent with other claims in the literature regarding the idea that trust and distrust are separate constructs rather than two ends of a single continuum (Dimoka, 2010;Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998;Marsh & Dibben, 2005;McKnight & Choudhury, 2006).…”

Impact of Entertainment Motivational Drivers on User Acceptance of Online Social Network Banner Advertising: A Gratification Perspective

“…The low correlations (i.e. < .70, Dimoka, 2010) between the measures of theoretically different constructs point to discriminant validity (Heeler & Ray, 1972). Inter-factor-correlations of SNSs entertainment motivation ranged from .10 to .48 which indicated discriminant validity (see Table 4).…”

Applying Functional Near Infrared (fNIR) Spectroscopy to Enhance MIS Research

“…Some of these additional areas are discussed in Dimoka et al (2012) and Riedl et al (2010a). Additionally, fNIR can augment current studies of trust and distrust as done in the context of fMRI (e.g., Dimoka, 2010;Riedl et al, 2010b;Riedl & Javor, 2012;Riedl, 2013) where it could serve to study in real- Pavlou & Gefen, 2004, 2005. fNIR could also provide insight on the crucial relationship between familiarity and trust as they occur in real world settings, as opposed to sitting in the movement and social limiting environment of an fMRI.…”

“…fNIR is also only suited for the study of neural correlates as they apply to brain regions 2-3 cm 2 wide. Put into perspective, however, the relatively low resolution problem of fNIR is of lesser concern considering social science research discusses neural correlates as they apply to entire brain regions such as the entire amygdala, insula, and PFC (e.g., Dimoka, 2010), rather than the subdivisions in those regions. This does not mean that comparing subdivisions in those regions is not important, such as comparing the central subdivision of the amygdala with its medial subsection (Yalch & Spangenberg, 2000 …”