Age-related similarities and differences in first impressions of trustworthiness

Abstract

Trust is a particularly under-studied aspect of social relationships in older age. In the current study, young (n = 35) and older adults (n = 35) completed a series of one-shot social economic trust games in which they invested real money with trustees. There were potential gains with each investment and also a risk of losing everything if the trustee was untrustworthy. The reputation and facial appearance of each trustee were manipulated to make them appear more or less trustworthy. Results revealed that young and older adults invest more money with trustees whose facial appearance and reputation indicate that they are trustworthy rather than untrustworthy. However, older adults were more likely than young to invest with trustees who had a reputation for being untrustworthy. We discuss whether age-related differences in responding to negative information may account for an age-related increase in trust, particularly when trusting someone with a reputation for being uncooperative.

Keywords:

• Trust
• First impressions
• Trustworthiness
• Ageing
• Positivity

Acknowledgements

We thank Alexander Todorov and Constantin Rezlescu for sharing their stimuli.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ For the young adults, there was no main effect for method of reimbursement (course credit versus cash payment), F(1, 33) = 0.02, p = .885, < .01, and method of reimbursement did not interact with any other variables, Fs ≤ 2.34, ps ≥ .136, ≤ .07.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported under Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP130101420). GS was supported by a Sixth Century Fellowship from the University of Aberdeen.s