Going beyond the Beauty - Trust Link: the Moderating Role of Mood

The current research examines the moderating role of mood in the relationship between beauty and trust. We propose that varying mood states can evoke different trust behaviors depending on the facial attractiveness of a person. Two experiments, each with different experiment paradigms, showed that people are more likely to rely on the characteristics of their partner’s face beauty in trust building when they are experiencing a positive mood. However, when participants are primed for a negative mood, the influence of attractiveness disappears. This finding indicates that facial attractiveness has no influence on trust behavior in a negative mood condition. These findings further illuminate the underlying influence of mood in the beauty-trust link.