Trust in strangers among disadvantaged people : the power of implicit just world beliefs

Trusting other people reduces the complexity of life and enables cooperation. This is beneficial for the individuals involved and society as a whole. But how do we know if a person is trustworthy if no individualized information on this person is available in the trust situation? Thus, how do we form our trust decision if we encounter a complete stranger? The research presented in this book investigated how individuals’ social (dis-)advantage and just world perceptions inform each other when the trustworthiness of a stranger has to be judged. It is argued that under information uncertainty, humans reason heuristically and relate their trust in strangers to their dispositional and situational belief in a just world (BJW). However, this effect should be most pronounced for individuals perceiving themselves as members of a socially disadvantaged group: As socially disadvantaged compared to advantaged individuals lack resources (e.g., money or education) to cope with others’ misuse of trust, they strongly depend in their outcomes on their accurate trust judgments. Accordingly, especially this group of people should search for relevant information in the situation indicating a stranger’s trustworthiness and apply their dispositional and situational BJW as trust-related judgmental heuristics. Importantly, due to bottom effects for subjectively socially disadvantaged individuals with low dispositional BJW, those with high dispositional BJW should be most responsive to situational justice cues when forming their trust decisions. The relevance of the findings, their practical implications and limitations, as well as possible future research are discussed