Right-wing authoritarianism and stereotype-driven expectations interact in shaping intergroup trust in one-shot vs multiple-round social interactions

PLOS ONE, Nov 2019

Trust towards unrelated individuals is often conditioned by information about previous social interactions that can be derived from either personal or vicarious experience (e.g., reputation). Intergroup stereotypes can be operationalized as expectations about other groups’ traits/attitudes/behaviors that heavily influence our behavioral predictions when interacting with them. In this study we investigated the role of perceived social dimensions of the Stereotype Content Model (SCM)–Warmth (W) and Competence (C)—in affecting trusting behavior towards different European national group members during the Trust Game. Given the well-known role of ideological attitudes in regulating stereotypes, we also measured individual differences in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). In Experiment 1, we designed an online survey to study one-shot intergroup trust decisions by employing putative members of the European Union states which were also rated along SCM dimensions. We found that low-RWA participants’ trusting behavior was driven by perceived warmth (i.e., the dimension signaling the benevolence of social intentions) when interacting with low-C groups. In Experiment 2, we investigated the dynamics of trust in a multiple-round version of the European Trust Game. We found that in low-RWA participants trusting behavior decreased over time when interacting with high-W groups (i.e., expected to reciprocate trust), but did not change when interacting with low-W groups (i.e., expected not to reciprocate trust). Moreover, we found that high-RWA participants’ trusting behavior decreased when facing low-W groups but not high-W ones. This suggests that low-RWA individuals employ reputational priors but are also permeable to external evidence when learning about others’ trustworthiness. In contrast, high-RWA individuals kept relying on stereotypes despite contextual information. These results confirm the pivotal role played by reputational priors triggered by perceived warmth in shaping social interactions.

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Right-wing authoritarianism and stereotype-driven expectations interact in shaping intergroup trust in one-shot vs multiple-round social interactions

Liuzza MT (2017) Right-wing authoritarianism and stereotype-driven expectations interact in shaping intergroup trust in one-shot vs multiple-round social interactions. PLoS ONE 12(12): e0190142. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0190142 Right-wing authoritarianism and stereotype- driven expectations interact in shaping intergroup trust in one-shot vs multiple-round social interactions Giorgia Ponsi 0 1 Maria Serena Panasiti 0 1 Salvatore Maria Aglioti 0 1 Marco Tullio Liuzza 0 1 ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. 1 giorgia.ponsi@uniroma 0 1 mariaserena.panasiti@uniroma 0 1 .it (MSP) 1 0 Department of Psychology, University of Rome aSapienzao , Rome , Italy , 2 Social and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia , Rome , Italy , 3 Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, aMagna Graeciao University of Catanzaro , Loc. Germaneto, Catanzaro 1 Editor: Marco Tamietto, Tilburg University , NETHERLANDS Trust towards unrelated individuals is often conditioned by information about previous social interactions that can be derived from either personal or vicarious experience (e.g., reputation). Intergroup stereotypes can be operationalized as expectations about other groups' traits/attitudes/behaviors that heavily influence our behavioral predictions when interacting with them. In this study we investigated the role of perceived social dimensions of the Stereotype Content Model (SCM)±Warmth (W) and Competence (C)Ðin affecting trusting behavior towards different European national group members during the Trust Game. Given the well-known role of ideological attitudes in regulating stereotypes, we also measured individual differences in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). In Experiment 1, we designed an online survey to study one-shot intergroup trust decisions by employing putative members of the European Union states which were also rated along SCM dimensions. We found that low-RWA participants' trusting behavior was driven by perceived warmth (i.e., the dimension signaling the benevolence of social intentions) when interacting with low-C groups. In Experiment 2, we investigated the dynamics of trust in a multiple-round version of the European Trust Game. We found that in low-RWA participants trusting behavior decreased over time when interacting with high-W groups (i.e., expected to reciprocate trust), but did not change when interacting with low-W groups (i.e., expected not to reciprocate trust). Moreover, we found that high-RWA participants' trusting behavior decreased when facing low-W groups but not high-W ones. This suggests that low-RWA individuals employ reputational priors but are also permeable to external evidence when learning about others' trustworthiness. In contrast, high-RWA individuals kept relying on stereotypes despite contextual information. These results confirm the pivotal role played by reputational priors triggered by perceived warmth in shaping social interactions. - Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Introduction Social decisions are described as choices that influence both ourselves and other individuals, and are consequently affected by both self- and other-regarding preferences [ 1 ]. Importantly, social decisions are usually taken in interpersonal contexts that include other social agents whose mental states, intentions and future behaviors are characterized by uncertainty [ 2 ]. In humans, widespread altruism toward genetically unrelated individuals probably required the evolution of specific psychological tools [ 3 ]. One of these tools is represented by trust, that is the willingness to take the risk of helping another individual despite the possibility of not being helped back [ 4 ]. Paradigms from experimental economics (Game Theory[ 5 ]) provide an ecologically valid way to determine social preferences in the laboratory setting, and how social decisions can be influenced by dispositional and situational factors [6±8]. In particular, decisions to trust and to reciprocate trust are usually investigated by employing the Trust Game (TG[ 9 ]). The TG can be played both as single-round game in which participants take decisions only once (i.e., one-shot decisions) and as multiple-round game in which decisions are re-iterated several times. Interestingly, these variants strongly affect both optimal and actual game strategies because of the effect of potential consequences on current choices [ 10 ]. On the one hand, behavioral Game Theory [ 11 ] predicts thatÐwhen playing only onceÐa rational and selfish trustee will never pay back the investor. Therefore a rational investor should invest nothing in the first place [ 4 ]. Despite these assumptions, a majority of investors are prone to send some money to the trustee (approximately half of their endowment) and this trust is usually reciprocated [ 11 ]. On the other hand, during repeated social interactions, choices change contin (...truncated)


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Giorgia Ponsi, Maria Serena Panasiti, Salvatore Maria Aglioti, Marco Tullio Liuzza. Right-wing authoritarianism and stereotype-driven expectations interact in shaping intergroup trust in one-shot vs multiple-round social interactions, PLOS ONE, 2017, Volume 12, Issue 12, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0190142