Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/330211 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal of Behavioral Decision Making [ISSN:] 1099-0771 [Volume:] 38 [Issue:] 4 [Article No.:] e70037 [Publisher:] Wiley [Place:] Hoboken, NJ [Year:] 2025
Publisher: 
Wiley, Hoboken, NJ
Abstract: 
Life is full of decisions about whether to trust other people. At a cognitive level, people can be skeptical about another person's trustworthiness but are averse to signaling their suspicions at a behavioral level. This phenomenon of “principled trustfulness” has been documented for trust implicating the moral character of another person but not explored for cases involving their competence. We introduce a new game‐theoretical paradigm, the competence game, in which participants can bet money on whether an interaction partner will pass an intelligence test, thus placing trust in their partner's competence. Across four studies ( N  = 3337 participants analyzed, each making a decision to risk), we compared behavior in competence games and traditional trust games, which focus on moral choice and lottery gambles. In competence games, participants were significantly less likely to trust their interaction partner than in trust games even if the pay‐off structure and likelihood of reaching a positive outcome were identical. Thus, trust in competence is not as principled to the same degree as trust in moral character but seems to be approached more like a self‐interested investment decision.
Subjects: 
competence
competence game
morality
trust
trust game
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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