On Trust and Disgust: Evidence From Face Reading and Virtual Reality

Abstract

We report three studies exploring the relationship between disgust and trust. Study 1a measured emotions using face-reading technology while participants played a repeated trust game. We observed a negative correlation between trust and disgust. Study 1b employed self-reports along with the face reader. The self-report procedure adversely affected participants’ emotional state and eliminated the correlation between trust and other emotions. Study 2 induced incidental disgust or sadness using virtual reality and manipulated participants’ awareness of the source of their emotions. Disgusted participants judged others as less trustworthy and sent less in a trust game than sad or control participants. An interaction indicated that awareness of the source of emotions eliminated the effect. Our data are consistent with the association between disgust and harsher moral judgments and suggest that disgust is antithetical to the building of trust. However, the association disappears if individuals are aware that their disgust is unrelated to the setting.

Is it all about appearance? Limited cognitive control and information advantage reveal self-serving reciprocity

“…These results are in line with theory and findings suggesting that cooperation, in general, is intuitively driven (e.g., Halevy & Chou, 2014;Levine et al, 2018;Rand, 2016;Rand et al, 2012, but see Bouwmeester et al, 2017;Tinghög et al, 2013). These results are also consistent with behavioral (Kugler et al, 2020;Pillutla & Murnighan, 1996), physiological (van't Wout et al, 2006, and neurological (Sanfey et al, 2003;Tabibnia et al, 2008;van den Bos et al, 2009) studies indicating that visceral, automatically driven emotions are involved in fair and reciprocal behavior (for a review, see Sanfey & Chang, 2008). Additionally, cognitive control processes, in the form of emotion regulation, are required in order to override and downregulate these automatic emotional processes (Bereby-Meyer et al, 2009;Gilam et al, 2015;Grecucci et al, 2013;Tabibnia et al, 2008;van 't Wout et al, 2010;Xiao & Houser, 2005).…”

(Not) alone in the world: Cheating in the presence of a virtual observer

“…Controlled variations in identity, appearance and proximity create new possibilities in studies of discrimination (Peck et al 2013) and the use of virtual humans avoids the reflection problem in studies of peer effects (Gürerk et al 2019). Realistic but controllable environments further allow for strong emotion induction in studies on moral judgements (Kugler et al 2019) and for measurement of responses that would be impossible or unethical to obtain in any other way, such as evacuation behavior of non-experts (Kinateder et al 2014) and the trolley problem (Navarrete et al 2012). For a more extensive review of the possibilities and drawbacks for high-immersive VR experiments in economics the reader is referred to Mol (2019).…”

Does Disgust Increase Unethical Behavior? A Replication of Winterich, Mittal, and Morales (2014)

“…Some research has found disgust (physical or interpersonal) to be related to harsher moral judgments (Eskine et al, 2011;Schnall et al, 2008) and a desire for purity (Horberg et al, 2009). People primed with disgust judge unethical behaviors more harshly (Schnall et al, 2008;Wheatley & Haidt, 2005) and are less trusting (Kugler et al, 2020). Scenarios designed to evoke strong disgust are perceived as unethical (Haidt et al, 1993).…”