Trust Against all Odds? Emotional Dynamics in Trust Behavior

• In Event: 288 - Section on Sociology of Emotions Paper Session. New Directions in the Sociology of Emotion

Abstract

Many theories of action in psychology, sociology and economics, if they allow a role for emotions beyond cognitive evaluations of probability and utility, work from a consequentialist framework, asserting that decisions under risk and uncertainty are predicted by anticipated emotions, affective reactions that people forecast they will feel once the outcomes of risky decisions are known. We argue instead that risky decisions are not so much predicted by anticipated emotions as they are by immediate ones, feelings people attach directly to specific decision options at the cusp of making a decision. Three laboratory studies examined how well subjective probability, anticipated and immediate emotions predicted decisions to trust in an economic trust game. Analyses revealed that trust decisions were substantially predicted more strongly by immediate emotions than anticipated ones. Moreover, immediate emotions also explained why participants were more willing to take a social risk in the trust game than they were a nonsocial risk on the flip of a coin. These findings cast further doubt on whether a socially risky choice like trust is primarily driven by rationalist and consequentialist concerns.

Authors

• Thomas M. Schlösser, University of Cologne

• David Dunning, Cornell University

• Detlef G. Fetchenhauer, University of Cologne