Trust in morality versus trust in competence: A comparative analysis

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Detlef Fetchenhauer
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 432688942

Many everyday situations require trust in the competence of our fellow human beings (e.g., visiting the doctor or taking a train ride). Although competence has been identified as an important facet of trustworthiness in many research fields, research in social psychology has so far paid little attention to trust in competence. Therefore, the aim of this research project is a systematic comparison of the properties and causal determinants of trust in morality and of trust in competence. Numerous studies were able to show that trust in the morality of other people does not mainly result from an instrumental, profit-maximizing calculation but is instead primarily guided by moral norms. Out of respect people do not want to signal their distrust to another person, even though at the cognitive level, they judge the morality of their interaction partners to be low and even though in similar non-social decision-making situations (e.g., lotteries), they are unwilling to take equivalent risks. Based on innovative experimental methods, this research project enables a direct comparison of otherwise structurally identical morality- and competence-related trust decisions. For one thing, trust in morality or competence will be measured as specific behavior in economic games – in the trust game known from previous research and in a competence game specially developed for this research project in which it is not the morality but the competence of a trustee that determines the outcome of the interaction. For another thing, cognitive trust (i.e., expectations regarding the trustworthiness of interaction partners) as well as the moral norms and emotions relevant in the context of the trust decision will be assessed in order to allow for a comparative analysis of the basic structures and determinants of trust in morality and competence. A particular focus is on the questions of whether and under what conditions trust in competence has similar characteristics to trust in morality and under what conditions trust in competence is more akin to non-social risk decisions. In this regard, it is argued that the relevance the respective competence dimension has to the self-esteem of the trustee might play a central role. That is, moral norms of respect should only substantially influence trust decisions if the underlying competence dimension is considered to be relevant to the self-esteem of the trustee. In addition, the properties and causal determinants of decisions in which people simultaneously trust in the morality and the competence of another person will be investigated in an explorative way.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Daniel Ehlebracht