Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, 105 The Green, Newark, DE, 19716, USA.
Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware, 18 Amstel Ave., Newark, DE, 19716, USA.
Sci Rep. 2023 Jun 19;13(1):9901. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-36948-x.
Navigating social hierarchies is a ubiquitous aspect of human life. Social status shapes our thoughts, feelings, and actions toward others in various ways. However, it remains unclear how trust is conferred within hierarchies and how status-related cues are used when resources are on the line. This research fills this knowledge gap by examining how ascribed, consensus-based status appearance, and perceived status appearance impact investment decisions for high- and low-status partners during a Trust Game. In a series of pre-registered experiments, we examined the degree to which participants trusted unfamiliar others with financial investments when the only available information about that person was their socioeconomic status (SES). In Study 1, SES was ascribed. Studies 2 and 3 conveyed SES with visual antecedents (clothing). Across all three experiments, participants trusted high SES partners more than low SES partners. In addition, subjective perceptions of status based on visual cues were a stronger predictor of trust than consensus-based status judgments. This work highlights a high status-trust bias for decisions where an individual's money is on the line. In addition, high-status trust bias may occur simply because of an individual's subjective assumptions about another's rank.
在人类生活中，驾驭社会等级是普遍存在的现象。社会地位以各种方式塑造着我们对他人的想法、感受和行为。然而，在涉及资源时，人们对于信任如何在等级制度中产生以及如何利用与地位相关的线索仍不清楚。本研究通过考察在信任博弈中，当唯一可用的关于他人的信息是其社会经济地位 (SES) 时，赋予的、基于共识的地位表现和感知的地位表现如何影响高地位和低地位伙伴的投资决策，填补了这一知识空白。在一系列预先注册的实验中，我们研究了当参与者对不熟悉的他人进行财务投资时，他们对其社会经济地位（SES）的信任程度。在研究 1 中，SES 是赋予的。研究 2 和 3 通过视觉先行线索（衣着）传达 SES。在所有三个实验中，参与者都比低 SES 伙伴更信任高 SES 伙伴。此外，基于视觉线索的主观地位感知是信任的一个更强预测因素，而不是基于共识的地位判断。这项工作突出了在个人的金钱处于风险之中的决策中存在高度的地位信任偏见。此外，高地位信任偏见可能仅仅是因为个人对他人等级的主观假设。
