Personal Aspects of Trust

### **Chapter 3**

## Signaling Trustworthiness: A Self-Regulation Account

*Samantha P. Lapka and Franki Y.H. Kung*

### **Abstract**

Trustworthiness is generally considered a positive trait, and past research has investigated different factors that lead a person to be deemed trustworthy. As suggested in recent work, one important predictor and signal of trustworthiness is self-control. In this chapter, we offer a literature review on the social effects of selfcontrol on trustworthiness. We first outline basic models of self-control and review empirical evidence of the interpersonal processes through which perceptions of self-control and trustworthiness are formed and connected. Then, we review evidence to identify and propose implications, both potential upsides and downsides, of self-control induced trustworthiness. We conclude by discussing understudied and novel factors that may potentially influence the associations between selfcontrol and trust, and offer ideas for future directions.

**Keywords:** self-control, trust-signaling, social perception, mindset, goals, interpersonal processes

### **1. Introduction**

Given the importance of the organizational and interpersonal benefits shown from people's ability to gain trust, it is crucial to see what influences how trustworthy a person is deemed. Past research has identified predictors of trustworthiness that include personality traits and physical attributes. Trait agreeableness and honestyhumility show positive correlations with trustworthiness [1–3]. Guilt-proneness how guilty a person thinks they would feel about doing something wrong—was found to predict trustworthiness even better than agreeableness and other Big Five personality traits (i.e., extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness), and this relationship was mediated by interpersonal responsibility [2]. Facial expressions were also found to have a significant relationship with perceived trustworthiness [4, 5]. Although these elements are important to understand, there are additional influential factors of trust that still need more research. In this chapter, we underscore a growing body of research [6] that reveals one essential yet understudied personal trait that reliably impacts trustworthiness: self-control. Below, we review and highlight the role self-control plays in garnering trustworthiness, identifying the range of related positive and negative outcomes and questions for future research to explore.

### **2. Trust and trustworthiness**

Trust and trustworthiness are critical factors in social dynamics. Trust (a.k.a. propensity to trust) is described as the amount of vulnerability a person allows

themselves in a particular situation [7]. Broadly speaking, trust occurs between two or more people, groups, or entities (e.g., romantic partners, co-workers, organizations with shared interests, an athlete and their team, and a political party and their candidate) and is characterized by feelings of confidence that the trustee will meet expectations of the trustor, which are generally positive or non-negative [8]. Trust is especially relevant in situations with no certain or guaranteed outcomes, where the trustor allows themselves to be vulnerable to the possibility that their expectations will not be met [9].

Separately, trustworthiness encompasses the perception the trustor has of the trustee's ability to meet their expectations. It is often developed from past experiences and can differ depending on the context of the expectations. Past research has identified both a 2 and 3-dimensional model to conceptualize the way we understand trustworthiness. The 2-dimensional model suggests that trustworthiness is formed by both affect-based and cognition-based trust, where affect based-trust describes the belief or perception that the trustee will act in a manner that preserves the relationship, and cognition-based trust entails the trustee behaving in a competent and dependable manner [10]. The other model proposes three components that form perceptions of trustworthiness—benevolence, integrity, and ability [7]. A person who demonstrates that they [1] are capable of meeting an expectation, [2] without defying their accepted principles, and [3] without exploiting or taking advantage of the trustor's vulnerability, would be viewed as trustworthy. While distinct, these models appear to overlap in their theory, as noted by Ferrin [11], who suggested that perceived ability and integrity signal cognition-based trust, and perceived benevolence communicates affect-based trust. Research has since supported this belief, finding that, for cognition-based trust, ability and integrity were better predictors, while benevolence was the best predictor of affect-based trust [12]. These findings overall support the idea that cognitive and affect-based trust are distinct from each other.

Trust and trustworthiness provide benefits to a wide range of situations. Research in management and organizational psychology suggests these traits lead to more productive workplace outcomes. For instance, in management settings, increased trust and trustworthiness in co-workers promotes openness, cooperation, information sharing, the exchange of ideas, opportunities for the development of beliefs and attitudes, and the acceptance of shared ideas [13, 14]. Trust has also been positively associated with job performance and citizenship behavior, and negatively associated with counterproductive behavior [15–17]. One study [18], found that "trustworthy managers preside over more productive organizations and are better able to maintain and even increase organizational outcomes in agencies challenged by low levels of performance and perturbations in the external environment." More trustworthy managers were also associated with greater procedural and interpersonal justice in the workplace [19], and perceptions of trustworthiness provided by coworkers have been identified as predictors of work performance, specifically through impressions of ability and integrity [20].

Trust and trustworthiness are related to beneficial outcomes in non-work relationships as well. Interpersonal trust increases the closeness, quality and communication within interpersonal relationships with intimate partners, siblings, and children and parents [21–25]. Rotter [25] found that those who are more trusting are less likely to participate in immoral behaviors such as lying, stealing or cheating, and have a decreased likelihood of being maladjusted or unhappy. Divergently, high trustors are more likely to respect the rights of others, give second chances, be desired as a friend more, and be more well liked [25]. Greater perceived trustworthiness was found to contribute to peer acceptance, school adjustment and performance [26], and was positively related to developing relations with peers

and having more friendships [26–28]. Considering the many benefits that trust and trustworthiness can produce, it is advantageous and important to understand what predicts it, and some recent research has identified self-control as a signal of trust.

### **3. Self-control**

Self-control has been vastly studied through the decades, with over 2 million related search results on Google Scholar as a testament to the topic's importance. By definition, self-control is the regulation of behaviors and thoughts to pursue a more distant and abstract goal or motive when a directly conflicting opportunity to satisfy an immediate and concrete motive or goal is present [29, 30]. In other words, self-control is demonstrated in your decision to forgo the tasty treat that is currently available to you, in order to remain committed to your diet and long-term goals of a healthy lifestyle. It is no surprise that this characteristic, and its related outcomes, have maintained the interest of psychologists for so long.

The outcomes related to self-control are as important as the trait itself. Research has identified that trait self-control is positively linked to better physical health and performance in school and work [30–32], along with greater attainment and subjective well-being [33, 34]. It has also been shown that those with greater self-control show more empathy, perspective taking, less deception, and report better behaviors in romantic relationships [21, 35, 36]. These positive associations with self-control have naturally led researchers to investigate how individuals can increase this beneficial trait. Past findings have recommended methods related to goal setting, monitoring, and implementing [37], and described various types of interventions (i.e., social skills development programs, cognitive coping strategies interventions, video tape training/ role-playing interventions, immediate/delayed rewards clinical interventions, and relaxation training) that have helped increase self-control and reduce delinquency in children [38]. Practicing mindfulness and small acts of self-control, such as eating fewer sweets, has also led to improved performance on self-control tasks [39].

While having trait self-control and being seen as someone who demonstrates self-control are not necessarily the same, positive consequences have been identified based on mere perceptions of the trait. A person who is viewed as being self-controlled has better social relationships, with greater satisfaction and success [31, 40, 41]. Perceived self-control is also related to greater organizational outcomes like being viewed as more fair at work [42]. However, these perceptions have also been associated with some negative outcomes including assumptions that the work done by highly controlled individuals is less arduous and time-consuming, which can lead to the employee being overburdened with extra assignments [43]. High perceptions of self-control can also cause an individual to face negative consequences in social settings where their company may be less desired [44] or in academic settings where their peers may be less likely to offer them assistance [45].

While self-control is commonly considered an intrapersonal trait, our perceptions of other people's self-control are important signals during interpersonal settings. The amount of self-control a person demonstrates significantly impacts other perceptions we have about them, which can ultimately influence our behaviors and attitudes towards the person.

### **4. Self-control signaling trust**

As suggested by an increasing amount of recent empirical evidence [6, 21], we argue that perceptions of self-control function as a reliable signal for trustworthiness. Below, we summarize the varied emerging evidence and elaborate on how self-control induced trustworthiness manifests across different relationship contexts.

In *romantic relationships*, because self-control is related to increased perspective taking, keeping more promises, and being more empathic and forgiving [31, 35, 46, 47], it is no wonder that greater perceptions of self-control lead to increased relationship satisfaction and success [40]. A partner who demonstrates that they have the capacity to meet long-term goals and successfully avoid or suppress temptation showcases their potential for meeting standards. This can translate to their ability to meet the expectations of others, and therefore how trustworthy they should be considered by their partner. For example, a person who refuses to respond to a flirty message from a stranger—because it could damage their long-term goal of maintaining a good relationship with their partner—would illustrate to their partner how they are capable of pursuing long-term goals over short term satisfaction. Subsequently, their partner would be more inclined to believe that the person will meet their expectations of staying faithful in the relationship, and would deem them more trustworthy. When trustworthiness is signaled, the relationship quality is better, there is more positive communication, and partners feel closer [21]. Self-control perceptions are thereby inherently critical for quality romantic relationships, for they are affiliated with trustworthiness [22].

*Close relationships* naturally reap similar benefits as romantic relationships in regard to self-control—as being more empathetic, forgiving, and having better positive communication also promotes greater friendships and family relationships [21, 35, 47]. Research has shown that non-romantic relationships benefit from selfcontrol in other aspects as well. Fewer deceptive behaviors are observed in those with greater self-control [36], and more positive perceptions of a high self-control person are found, such as being seen as more popular [41]. These positive views towards the person carry over to promote other positive qualities, like trustworthiness, which results in increased communication and greater development in friendship quality and quantity [27, 28, 48, 49]. It has also been shown that a child's trustworthiness positively contributes to their school adjustment which is partially due to increased acceptance from their peers [26]. Overall, greater perceptions of self-control support positive perceptions of trustworthiness, which, in turn, relate to better close relationships [31].

*Organizational and work relationships* also benefit from high self-control perceptions, while in slightly different ways. In organizations, those seen as highly self-controlled are preferred as partners for work-related tasks such as proofreading an application or being part of a team [44], and supervisors who are perceived as higher in self-control are considered to be fairer by their employees [42]. These positive perceptions naturally signal trustworthiness, by supporting the notion that the high self-control person is reliable and effective, and therefore trustworthy as a co-worker or boss. For example, a supervisor who demonstrates high self-control would refrain from abusing the company expense account for pricey lunch outings—even though they crave a nice meal and break from the office—in an effort to maintain respect from other members of the company. By reserving the lunches for appropriate instances, the boss meets the expectation from subordinates that they will use the expense account responsibly. Similarly, a worker who stays late to finish a last-minute proposal—thereby missing the sports game they were planning to watch—showcases their work ethic, and increases their likelihood of being promoted, by meeting the high expectations of the project. Co-workers and associates who recognize those expectations being met will then consider the employee or boss to be trustworthy, resulting in downstream beneficial outcomes. Organizations and associates who are viewed as more trustworthy show increases in productivity, organizational outcomes, and cooperation for intergroup and interpersonal exchanges [13, 18]. In a study by Dirks and Skarlicki [20], the

### *Signaling Trustworthiness: A Self-Regulation Account DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101326*

perceptions of capability and integrity towards a co-worker, two components of trust [7], predicted that co-worker's performance. Additionally, trait trust within an organization positively corresponds with greater communication, openness, and cooperation [14], along with increased task performance and citizenship behavior, and less counterproductive behaviors [17]. Overall, trust and trustworthiness result in many advantageous organizational outcomes, and importantly, self-control acts as a signal of this trustworthiness, leading to positive work behaviors and ultimately a more productive workplace.

Notably, while there are many upsides of high self-control perceptions in organizational relationships, some downsides have been identified by more recent research as well. While high self-control individuals benefit by being trusted and desired more as partners in work-related settings [44], they are also relied on more, and have more expected of them by their workmates, compared to those perceived as lower in self-control [43]. Their associates also tend to think the work done by those with high self-control takes less effort and is easier [43]. High self-control people may then be asked or expected to complete more tasks because their associates trust them to meet the heightened expectations, while receiving less recognition compared to their co-workers who are lower in self-control. These beliefs can lead to high self-control individuals feeling overburdened and underappreciated, resulting in a decrease in relationship satisfaction [43].

Organizational relationships are not alone in their potential for negative consequences of high self-control perceptions. Research by Röseler [44] has found that, while those perceived as having greater self-control are preferred in settings of work, they are less preferred in social settings, such as parties, compared to people with lower levels of self-control. This may result from the belief that the high self-control person, who suppresses desires and forgoes immediate satisfaction in pursuit of long-term goals, will continue to meet that expectation as they have previously. If it is trusted that these expectations will be maintained, then the person's high self-control "may interfere with being perceived as good company during leisure time and at parties" [44].

Overall, perceptions of self-control play an important role in how trustworthy a person is considered and the ramified positive and negative outcomes. While this connection is recognized across relationship types, distinct differences remain between their contexts. Naturally, organizational and work relationships are unique from social relationships. Social relationships are less formal and usually focus on personal connection, while organizational relationships often revolve around productivity and teamwork [50, 51]. These divergent characteristics likely contribute to how self-control and trust are understood in the respective relationships, breeding the variation of outcomes across contexts.

The unique findings from past research on self-control create an interesting paradigm for its relationship with trust and their related outcomes. Diving deeper into this relationship, we ask, what else might impact self-control's signal of trustworthiness, and what would it mean?

### **5. Emerging future directions**

Thus far, we have discussed the self-control and trust relationship in a quantitative sense, examining the extent to which high self-control is associated with greater perceptions of trust. While informative, a holistic understanding beyond the intensity of the relationship remains to be studied, and it requires us to better understand how and when the relationship occurs. We propose that the less explored, qualitative differences underlying self-control may impact the dynamic of the self-control

and trust relationship, along with its potential outcomes. Here we offer our ideas and some relevant questions for future research.

### **5.1 Differences in goal content**

As discussed above, self-control is conceptualized by choosing to pursue higherorder goals over lower-order goals [29]. Considering this definition, it is important to understand *what* the higher-order goals consist of. Whereas it is possible for two people to exert the same level of self-control; the goal towards which they pursue can be different [52]. For example, common goals described in self-control situations relate to academic or professional achievement (e.g., getting good grades or promoted), health (e.g., eating healthy or working out), and financial spending (e.g., saving money each month) [53–55]. Understanding the goals that underlie self-control action may shed new light on how self-control affects trust perceptions.

One popular framework of goal content has been agentic and communal. Agentic goals are pursued in an effort to improve or satisfy oneself, while communal goals relate to the more interpersonal and connected pursuits of the person [56]. Agentic goals could include working out more to lose weight and look fit or reading more to grow your knowledge on different subjects. The person's level of success in pursuing these goals can signal their competence or ability to others. Separately, communal goals could include being more proactive in reaching out to others to be a better friend or working hard to make extra money and better support your family. These goals can signal a person's benevolence, or care and interest in others. These different types of goals serve varied functions in our lives, therefore, the content of a goal is important for the message it translates. The type of goal that is pursued can foster different perceptions of a person's self-control abilities, even if the intensity of the person's regulation is the same across the varied goals.

If someone is successful in pursuing their agentic goals it will signal high competence and ability in the person. This will subsequently act as a signal for cognition-based trust, which is partially formed from perceptions of ability, and thus cognition-based trust perceptions will increase towards the person. For example, someone that studies for an extra 5 hours during the week may be viewed as highly capable of improving their GPA, and thus more trustworthy in situations that test ability, which could lead to positive downstream outcomes like increased peer acceptance and better school adjustment [26].

In contrast, someone that is successful in pursuing their communal goals, which are based on interpersonal connection and care for others, will signal their high benevolence, promoting perceptions of affect-based trust. For example, a person that dedicates 5 hours a week to calling their family members to catch up may be seen as very caring, which would signal their affect-based trustworthiness. This would likely lead to positive outcomes for that person such as more friendships and greater acceptance from their peers [26–28].

While the promotion of cognitive-based or affect-based trust is likely beneficial to the perceived person, some recent research suggests that perceptions of high self-control can lead to negative outcomes as well, and those could be the result of a differential activation of the two kinds of trust. In one study, those viewed as high in self-control were seen as more "robot-like," more competent, and less warm than those perceived as lower in self-control [42]. Those perceptions of high ability and competence would likely foster cognition-based but not affective-based trustworthiness in the perceived person. This asymmetry or lack of perceived benevolence (or warmth) then explains downstream negative social outcomes (e.g., reduced interest in socially connecting with the person) [45]. Additionally, this suggests a possible remedy that the presence of affect-based trust would act as a buffer to the negative

### *Signaling Trustworthiness: A Self-Regulation Account DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101326*

outcomes. Fostering affect-based trust through successful self-control of communal goal pursuits, in addition to the already present cognition-based trust, may eliminate the negative outcomes that can be observed from perceptions of high self-control.

Overall, we propose that the goal content (e.g., agentic or communal) has an important impact on the formation of trust perceptions due to self-control, which can potentially lead to both positive and negative outcomes for the perceived. This proposition gives rise to new questions for the study of the relationship between self-control and trust perceptions. We have suggested that the negative social outcomes identified in recent research may be corrected by the addition of affect-based trust perceptions formed from successful communal goal pursuits. Alternatively, would relationships that demonstrate high self-control through only communal goals, producing solely affect-based trust perceptions, also result in negative outcomes? If so, would these consequences be exclusively agentic, and what would they entail? Additionally, how does the ratio of agentic and communal goal success relate to the formation of trust perceptions, and does this differ based on the context of the relationship (e.g., co-workers vs. romantic partners)? Finally, how would failed agentic or communal goal pursuits affect the outcomes of trust perceptions? These questions offer interesting potential avenues for future research.

### **5.2 Self-control mindsets and trust perceptions**

An additional interesting qualitative factor to consider in the self-control and trust relationship is how differences in beliefs about self-control, in general, can impact perceptions of trustworthiness.

### *5.2.1 Limited vs. nonlimited*

Lay theories of self-control recognize views that are commonly held about a person's ability to self-regulate. Lay theories, or mindsets, are developed from our socialization and past experiences, and different types of lay theories have been identified in the self-control literature. The first relates to the belief that a person generally has a limited (slowly replenishing) or nonlimited (quickly replenishing) amount of self-control [57]. For example, if an individual successfully demonstrated their self-control abilities, someone with a limited self-control mindset would believe that the person no longer has their full capacity for implementing self-control, and that it will take time to be completely restored. Alternatively, a person with a nonlimited mindset would believe that an individual who demonstrated their self-control ability would have the same full capacity for self-control before their implementation of it, as well as quickly after.

This difference in mindset may create an important nuance for self-control's relationship with trust perceptions. If a person holds a limited mindset about self-control abilities, they would believe that once an individual exhibits successful self-control, they will be less capable of successfully implementing self-control in subsequent tasks, as they have already used up some of their resource. While this would likely increase self-control perceptions for the already completed task, it may reduce expectations for the person's future self-control abilities. In other words, the perceiver may have weaker trust perceptions because they expect the person to fail in demonstrating self-control in subsequent tasks, if there is not adequate time for their self-control abilities to replenish. An individual with a nonlimited mindset, however, would likely have greater trust perceptions, as they believe the person who just demonstrated successful self-control will have the same full capacity to do so in all subsequent self-control conflicts. This would likely lead to more positive outcomes for the perceived person.

### *The Psychology of Trust*

Future research should test this idea, by investigating if those with limited selfcontrol mindsets view others as less trustworthy after successfully demonstrating self-control. Other interesting questions remain as well, such as "How much time is needed for self-control abilities to replenish?" "Would the perceived person face negative outcomes from reduced trust perceptions?" "Do the types of goals pursued in the self-control action 'use up' one's self-control reserves differently?" "Is selfcontrol for agentic goals different from self-control for communal goals?" Lastly, "Would trustworthiness be reduced overall, or would perceptions of affect-based and cognition-based trust be impacted independently?"

### *5.2.2 Fixed vs. malleable*

The second type of mindset related to self-control focuses on the trait's plasticity. It consists of a fixed (stable and unchanging) or malleable (varied and mutable) mindset [58]. Fixed vs. malleable mindset affects dispositional judgments [59]. Someone with a fixed mindset of self-control would believe that the amount of self-control displayed by a person in a particular situation represents their overall self-control abilities. Conversely, someone with a malleable mindset would believe that a person's self-control abilities are susceptible to change, and therefore, a single instance that demonstrates self-control may not be indicative of the person's abilities overall.

Similar to limited and nonlimited mindset, the assumptions that a person's capacity for self-control will, or will not, change could color perceptions of the person's trustworthiness. For instance, dispositionism in social judgments can be a double-edged sword, depending on the valence of first impressions. Those with a fixed mindset are more likely to believe that a person holds the same amount of self-control across different conflicts, and they would likely base their self-control perceptions off their first impressions of the perceived person's self-control abilities. Thus, if they initially view a person to have low self-control, they may then see the person as untrustworthy overall. However, if the person is initially seen as high in self-control, they may then view them as an overall trustworthy person. Hence, the timing of the self-control incidence matters, and especially so for those with a fixed mindset of self-control.

The consideration of fixed and malleable mindset in relation to self-control trust perceptions breeds additional important questions. Primarily, since self-control abilities will likely fluctuate at some point, what does this mean for those with a fixed self-control mindset? What effect does a 'slip up' have on previously formed perceptions of self-control and trust? In relation to agentic and communal goals, would selfcontrol perceptions formed by one of the goal types translate to assumptions for the other goal type? And regarding those with malleable mindsets, how strong can trust perceptions be if it is understood that one's capacity for self-control is able to change?

### *5.2.3 Willpower vs. strategy*

Another way people may conceptualize self-control is in the materialization of their self-control efforts. In the process of pursuing a higher-order and distal goal over a lower-order and proximal goal, one may choose to utilize their willpower to effortfully inhibit the desire and temptation of the proximal goal. Another route the person could take would be to use strategies that allow them to proactively reduce their exposure to, and impact of, the temptation [29]. This can be done through manipulating the situation itself, such as selecting to be in an environment where the desire is not apparent (situation selection), or modifying the situation so it is easier to overcome the temptation (situation modification). Other strategies focus on altering the responses to temptations, such as directing focus away from the

### *Signaling Trustworthiness: A Self-Regulation Account DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101326*

desire (attentional deployment) or manipulating the way we think about it, so it becomes less appealing (cognitive change) [60].

Research has shown that both types of strategies are used in self-control conflicts, however, there are mixed findings related to the success and prominence of these different methods [61–63]. Since both these dimensions of self-control implementation—willpower and strategies—show a range of conflicting results, it is understood that the way people demonstrate self-control can vary, and this could be due to their self-control beliefs. Some people may have a willpower-based mindset where they rely on effortful inhibition to overcome desire, while others could have a strategy-based mindset and utilize one or more strategies in their self-control efforts. The way a person thinks about self-control the method(s) of implementing it could influence how they perceive other's self-control abilities.

The consideration of willpower-based and strategy-based mindsets in relation to self-control and trust perceptions sprouts several important questions. How does demonstrating control over oneself (i.e., willpower), compared to controlling the environment (i.e., using strategies), impact how trustworthy a person is viewed? Some research has suggested a timeline for when strategies and willpower are implemented in self-control conflicts. It is suggested that situational self-control strategies (i.e., situation selection and situation modification) are used first, followed by intrapsychic strategies (i.e., attentional deployment and cognitive change) [61]. Willpower, also referred to as response modulation, offers the final opportunity to overcome the desire. Since willpower can be considered the "last line of defense" in resisting a temptation, would a person that demonstrates self-control through effortful inhibition (i.e., willpower) be considered less trustworthy, as they could only overcome the desire in their final opportunity to do so? Or, would a person that demonstrates self-control through the use of strategies be considered less trustworthy, as the opportunity to change one's environment may not always be present? Since one's environment is more susceptible to change than the person themself, would someone that demonstrates strategy-based self-control be less reliable, and therefore less trustworthy than a person who demonstrates willpowerbased self-control?

These questions are important for future research on self-control perceptions and their subsequent effects on trustworthiness. Willpower-based and strategybased self-control mindsets may also lead to implications for the downstream outcomes of trustworthiness. Future research should examine the potential effects of willpower and strategy-based mindset, along with limited (nonlimited) and fixed (malleable) mindsets, on self-control and trust perceptions to increase insight into the relationship and its related outcomes.

### **6. Conclusion**

Research has identified that self-control is an important predictor of trustworthiness. In considering the quantitative factors between self-control and trust, the relationship is almost exclusively positive, where greater self-control perceptions lead to increased perceptions of trustworthiness, which result in positive downstream outcomes. However, when considering the less researched potential qualitative factors that can impact the relationship, such as goal content and mindset, the connection between the traits and their subsequent outcomes becomes much more nuanced. This suggests that, future research should examine the impacts of goal content and mindset on the self-control and trust relationship, as well as their (positive and negative) downstream effects in order to form a more holistic understanding of self-control's relationship with trust.

*The Psychology of Trust*

### **Author details**

Samantha P. Lapka\* and Franki Y.H. Kung Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States

\*Address all correspondence to: slapka@purdue.edu

© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Signaling Trustworthiness: A Self-Regulation Account DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101326*

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### **Chapter 4**

## The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages

*Judee K. Burgoon, Norah E. Dunbar, Miriam Metzger, Anastasis Staphopoulis, Dimitris Metaxas and Jay F. Nunamaker*

### **Abstract**

A fundamental underpinning of all social relationships is trust. Trust can be established through implicit forms of communication called relational messages. A multidisciplinary, multi-university, cross-cultural investigation addressed how these message themes are expressed and whether they are moderated by culture and veracity. A multi-round decision-making game with 695 international participants assessed the nonverbal and verbal behaviors that express such meanings as affection, dominance, and composure, from which people ultimately determine who can be trusted and who not. Analysis of subjective judgments showed that trust was most predicted by dominance, then affection, and lastly, composure. Behaviorally, several nonverbal and verbal behaviors associated with these message themes were combined to predict trust. Results were similar across cultures but moderated by veracity. Methodologically, automated software extracted facial features, vocal features, and linguistic metrics associated with these message themes. A new attentional computer vision method retrospectively identified specific meaningful segments where relational messages were expressed. The new software tools and attentional model hold promise for identifying nuanced, implicit meanings that together predict trust and that can, in combination, serve as proxies for trust.

**Keywords:** relational messages, dominance, affection, liking, composure, culture, deception, nonverbal communication, computational linguistics

### **1. Introduction to relational communication**

In today's world, where volatile interactions abound, a critical question that arises is how trust can and should be fostered. A fundamental underpinning of all social relationships is trust, and interpersonal communication is the mechanism through which trust is often accomplished. A multidisciplinary, multi-university, cross-cultural investigation was undertaken to address this question as well as to further explore how trust is established through implicit forms of communication. Employing a decision-making game with multiple rounds and 695 international participants, the University of Arizona, University of California Santa Barbara,

Rutgers University, Stanford University, University of Maryland and Dartmouth University investigated the manner in which nonverbal relational messages, comprised of nonverbal and verbal communication, might secure trust [1]. Applying a spiral model of trust, we formulated predictions of how people utilize implicit, relational messages to define their interpersonal relationships and from those exchanges, ultimately arrive at a determination of who can be trusted and who, not. We examined how relational messages of affection, dominance and composure signal and elicit trust, either universally across cultures or not, and how those messages are moderated by deception.

### **1.1 Relational communication and trust**

An integral part of human communication is the exchange of what are called relational messages. These are implicit messages that enable people to assess how they relate to one another and how they regard their interpersonal relationship. For example, at the most basic level, people must determine who is friend and who is foe, who they like and who they dislike, and whether the relationship is superficial or one of depth. These messages more often than not are expressed through nonverbal behaviors, which are the focus of this report. Although they also can be expressed verbally, for example, telling another that you trust them and find the relationship to be a deep and abiding one, the preponderate share of relational communication is managed nonverbally. In this way, verbal and nonverbal communication accomplish a division of labor, with the verbal aspects of communication handling substantive matters and the nonverbal aspects of communication handling much of the relationship work.

For example, a discussion in a classroom devoted to the topic of the election may be transacted through words, while nonverbally the students and teacher signal what the power relationship is—whether the instructor is in charge and the students are acquiescent to her or his authority, or the instructor is intending to instill a communication environment of equality; whether the instructor and students like one another or harbor some hidden animosity; whether they are engaged in the topic or are disinterested and detached from it; and so on. These various messages combine to build a foundation of mutual trust and goodwill such that the instructor presents what he/she believes to be the most current and valid material and the students enter the exchange accepting that the instructor is knowledgeable and credible, or the students are distrustful of the instructor's motivations, material and credibility and reject it.

The topoi of relational communication are generic continua of message exchange by which we can characterize all human interactions [2]. Burgoon and Hale [3, 4], after reviewing analyses of human relationships from such disciplines as anthropology, ethology, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and communication, identified up to 12 dimensions along which communication is transacted. To the extent that these are universal, these themes should arise in all cultures, though possibly to different degrees. How they are expressed, and in particular how the central ones relate to trust, are the major objective of this current research project.

Our theory of relational communication is that relational message themes are universal, interdependent, and together, through their dynamic exchange, become the cornerstones of trust. One avenue of our work examined self-reports of the communication behaviors people use and observe. This self-report work examined how relational themes are shown in various, disparate countries; the extent to which those countries are similar or different in the emergence of relational messages; and what behaviors contribute to perceptions of trust. A second avenue of work examined macro- and micro-level kinesic, vocalic and linguistic behaviors indicative of the major relational themes of dominance, liking, and composure and ultimately,

*The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101182*

how they contribute to trust. Three open-source software tools, OpenFace, OpenSmile, and SPLICE, were employed to investigate what nonverbal and verbal behaviors predict relational messages of dominance, composure and liking (see [5]) and whether the same behaviors could be used to develop a predictive model of trust. The nonverbal and verbal communication behaviors were also examined across six countries. A third avenue drilled deeper into the interpretive micro-level behavioral aspects of relational themes using computer vision techniques. Together the lines of investigation explored how trust spiraled dynamically over the course of group decision making and what relational message themes showed the most change.

### **1.2 Topoi of relational communication**

In human relationships, an intrinsic theme of relational communication is dominance-submission, which reflects the vertical dimension of primate relationships in social settings. People must know what the power structure is, whether there is a discernible status hierarchy, and who sits atop the pecking order and who is at the bottom. One's relative position in the hierarchy is typically negotiated through nonverbal kinesic, vocalic, proxemic, haptic, physical appearance, artifactual and chronemic signals. These signals are arrayed as continua. One can variously be highly, moderately or not at all dominant in relation to another. In dyads, groups, families, organizations and the like, people can be arrayed from most to least powerful, highest status to lowest status, most acquiescent to not at all. According to Burgoon and Dunbar [6], dominance is dynamic and situationally contingent. It is an actual action that recruits a submissive, acquiescent response from another. Whereas power may reflect a potential to act, dominance is the actual expression of that potentiality. If a dominant overture fails to elicit a submissive response, it is not dominance, but merely domineeringness. Thus, dominance requires both an action by Person A and a complementary, coupled response by Person B.

A second dimension is variously called affection-disaffection, love-hate, or liking-dislike. It reflects the valence dimension of relational communication that ranges from highly positive to highly negative. It is orthogonal to the vertical dimension. People may feel affection toward another and express it through a host of nonverbal signals. Conversely, they may dislike another and express that sentiment through nonverbal signals as well, although social mores inhibit sending highly visible or vocal expressions of dislike.

Along with dominance, affection is one of most prominent relational message themes. These two themes are central ones around which the other relational communication themes are arrayed. Three additional nonorthogonal topoi include composure-nervousness, involvement-detachment and similarity-dissimilarity. A person may express a sense of poise and composure in the presence of another or may appear nervous, anxious and uncomposed. In other words, one's demeanor is altered in relation to the other person. It does not reflect a general demeanor around others but rather, a person-specific nervousness or composure. A person may also show high or low involvement with another, that engagement being behavioral, cognitive and emotional. Yet another of the topoi is similarity-dissimilarity. Ongoing interactions with unfamiliar others require trying to assess the degree of similarity that exists between them. Such similarity is a starting place for communication. When homophily between individuals is high, communication is likely to be the most successful [7].

### **1.3 Spiral model of trust**

All of these topoi are interrelated to the theme of trust. As explained in the spiral model of trust [7], trust is an interactive and iterative process that derives from

multiple factors. It flows from, is sustained by, and modified through dynamic communication patterns. These patterns include the dominance relationships the parties bring to an interaction—such as the father being the head of a family and wife and children showing obedience to the father's strictures in a traditional paternal family structure, or the members of egalitarian LGBTQ couples showing similar degrees of dominance while negotiating decisions. The degree of positive affection that members of a social unit feel toward one another is communicated through the kinds of kinesic, vocalic and haptic patterns measured in our study. In families, for example, how loving the siblings feel toward one another and their parents dictates how they express that affection dimension through nonverbal messages. A third dimension reflected here is composure or nervousness—how at ease or tense members of the relationship feel in the presence of one another. If a person feels uneasy in the presence of others in a group, they may display that uneasiness through nonverbal messages of discomfort.

These dimensions combine to spiral into greater or lesser trust, and that spiral can change over time, becoming more intensely trustful or more suspicious and less trusting. Trust is a moving target. It is modified by the situation in which people find themselves and the relational messages they receive from others. In a group setting, for instance, members who wish to promote others' trust in themselves may attempt to temper their demeanor initially by being nondominant, but over time to bolster their persuasiveness by increasing signals of dominance. To promote liking and composure, they may send to others positively toned messages of liking and being at ease in hopes that those sentiments will be reciprocated. The important points to draw from the spiral model are that trust is the product of many different relational messages, as illustrated in **Figure 1**, and are in a state of flux, depending on the current context. The relational messages are comprised of various nonverbal and verbal signals in various strengths and combinations, the net result of which is the expression of trust and receipt of messages of trust. These messages may be communicated in similar ways across cultures, but to the extent they are communicated dissimilarly, culture must be taken into account.

The context for this study of relational communication and trust is situated within a multi-national study of cultural differences in conducting and detecting deception. In potentially adversarial situations, messages may be moderated by deception, which adds a toxic element to the exchanges. Thus, deception is also a centrally important moderator.

### **1.4 The relationship of culture to relational communication and trust**

Trust places people in a state of vulnerability to deception by others. Trust is often equated with a truth-bias, in other words, expecting that others are truthful, not deceptive. Defined formally, truth-bias is an overestimate of another's truthfulness independent of their actual honesty [8]. Thus, to understand trust is to understand deception and vice-versa. Trust and deception are intricately interrelated. Eliciting another's trust is accomplished by showing that one is not deceptive, by conveying authentic or apparent honesty. Likewise, assessing

**Figure 1.** *The relationship of relational messages to trust.*

another's trustworthiness may be based on spontaneous impressions from another's nonverbal demeanor, which can lead to dangerous decisions when that demeanor is false [10].

Unfortunately, most deception research pertaining to trust has been done in a "cultural vacuum" [11]. Moreover, the vast majority of studies on verbal and nonverbal cues to deception or deception detection skill have been done in Englishspeaking, western cultures. The work involving culture has focused largely on whether people who are from the same culture can detect deception within an interaction episode better or worse than people who are from two different cultures (see [12] for a review). Very few studies have analyzed cultural differences in displays associated with deception or in the detection of deception (i.e., comparing norms and behaviors of people who are situated in different cultures, such as cues used during deception by people in Japan versus by people in the U.S.). This leaves questions about cultural-level variations in decision-making concerning trust of an interaction partner unanswered.

There are two main theoretical perspectives on how to detect deception across cultures and hence, whether to trust an interaction partner. The first is the universal cues hypothesis [13]. The central premise of this perspective is that due to the evolutionary benefits of successful deception and deception detection being similar for all humans, the cues emitted by deceivers are unlikely to vary from one culture or society to the next. Moreover, for the same reason, the universal cues hypothesis says detectors of deception will experience and interpret those cues similarly in all cultures. In other words, the universal cues hypothesis expects deceivers should act similarly and deception detectors should have evolved similarly to spot deceptive behavior across cultures. Supporting this view, the Global Deception Research Team's study [14] found that deception has vast similarities across 75 countries. Another investigation across 5 countries [15] proposed and supported a pancultural typology of 10 motives for deceiving. In sum, the universal cues hypothesis predicts minimal cultural differences in deception detection, and thus by extension, how trust decisions are formed between interaction partners.

The second view is the specific discrimination perspective [12, 16]. This perspective takes the position that people rely on learned, culturally-determined norms and expectations to guide both their behavior and sensemaking during an interaction. As such, lying is conditioned by culture because cultures differ in their nonverbal behavior norms and displays, the value attached to honesty, frequency of lying, conditions for interpersonal trust, and responses to others' lies. Consequently, the specific discrimination perspective posits that deception and its detection are specific to communication patterns that vary across cultures. This helps to explain findings that people can better identify a liar from their own culture than a liar from a different culture by noticing deviations from their own learned cultural code (e.g., [12]). Applying this perspective to the decision-making process regarding trust of an interaction partner, the same forces lead to the prediction that trust and trust decision-making should vary in different cultures.

A few studies have tested these competing hypotheses about the influence of culture in deception detection. For example, George and colleagues [17] studied deception and its detection in three countries: America, India, and Spain. Participants evaluated 32 snippets of recorded interviews involving the three cultural groups across two languages. Within each stimulus set, half of the snippets were honest and the other half were dishonest. The researchers measured the cues that judges in each country cited as important to their decision about a person's honesty. Twenty-three cues were identified (e.g., nervousness, logical structure, talk time, voice pitch, etc.). The authors found that judges across the three cultural/ language groups relied on similar cues. For example, nine cues including lack of eye contact, fidgeting, tone or pitch, pauses, stuttering, vague reply, repetitive answers, contradicting oneself, and bragging accounted for a large majority of the deception cues used by judges in all three countries. The cues included kinesic, vocalic and verbal indicators. George and colleagues concluded that their results tend to support the universal cues hypothesis (see also [12, 13, 16]). Also supporting the universal cues hypothesis, others find that the frequency, motives for lying, and skill in deception detection are also similar across cultures (see [18] for a review). One of the few investigations of actual behavior and trust, and a model for the current experiments described in this chapter, is [19].

The consistency in findings helps to offset the paucity of culture-based experiments. Nevertheless, more controlled investigations rather than anecdotal reports are needed to confirm a universal cues hypothesis. Our investigation begins to fill the void by conducting the study in multiple countries ranging across four different continents and observing actual behavior rather than relying on self-reports of behavior, thereby allowing for the potential for variability that supports the specific discrimination perspective.

### **1.5 Behavioral indicators of relational messages**

Much research looks at people's perceptions rather than actual behavior. We were interested in going beyond perceptions to look at actual behaviors people display that foster trust and that signal they trust another person. We looked at nonverbal signals from the voice (known as vocalics), the face and body (known as kinesics) and linguistic (verbal) indicators. We hypothesized that trust would be communicated by those signals associated with messages of liking, moderately high dominance and moderate composure, and that it would be a combination of these signals that would evince and elicit trust. In other words, the more a person showed that they liked another individual and felt reasonably relaxed and composed around that individual, the more they were likely to trust that person. Similarly, people would be trusted the more they showed they liked others, exhibited many of the signals associated with moderate dominance and conveyed that they were moderately relaxed, not nervous.

### **2. The experiments**

### **2.1 Sample**

Participants were recruited from nine universities in six countries: Zambia, Israel, Singapore, Fiji, Hong Kong, and the U.S. (which included three of the universities, all with a diversity of international students). Country selection was a function of finding universities with a willing local host and a federal government that would consent to the 60-page Institutional Review Board requirements. All participants were current students (mean age = 22 years). In total, 695 people participated in the experiments and 95 games were played.

### **2.2 Method**

We devised a method for analyzing trust using an interactive social game created by Don Eskridge called The Resistance (variations of the game are sometimes known as Mafia or Werewolf) played in groups comprised of five to eight strangers. A detailed description of the game is found in [24]. It began with an ice-breaker activity designed to establish a baseline for perceptions of dominance, liking,

### *The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101182*

nervousness and trust. During the ice-breaker, players introduced themselves to the group, told an interesting fact about themselves, and then another player probed with a question to elicit more information. We measured their perceptions of the other players on self-report scales immediately following the ice-breaker.

Following the ice-breaker, Resistance players were randomly and secretly assigned to play one of two roles: deceivers (called "Spies"), or truth-tellers (called "Villagers"). There were two to three Spies per game, depending on the size of the group, but Villagers always outnumbered the Spies. The Spies were aware of who the other Spies were, but the Villagers did not know anyone else's role. Villagers attempted to deduce the other players' identities within the game. The players engaged in a practice round before the game play actually began to ensure they understood their goals in the game. Spies' purpose was to win the game by remaining hidden and infiltrating the Villagers' groups while the Villagers' goal was to uncover who the Spies were to avoid infiltration. So, finding out who to trust and who not to trust was especially crucial for the Villagers but important to the Spies as well.

Players completed a series of hypothetical "missions" by forming teams of five to eight members. At the beginning of each round, players elected a leader, who then chose other players for these missions based on who they thought would help them win the game. All players voted to approve or reject the team leader and then voted on the leader's proposed team. Again, trust played an important role because players from both sides needed to trust that the leader was picking the team that would ensure they won the round. Players took both a public and private vote, thus introducing the potential for distrust when the two votes did not match. Those who were chosen by the leader to go on the mission team secretly voted for the mission to succeed or fail. Villagers won rounds by figuring out who the spies were and excluding them from the mission teams to ensure mission success. Spies won rounds by causing mission failures. The ultimate winners of the game (Spies or Villagers) were determined by which team won the most rounds (up to a maximum of 8 rounds). Additionally, players won monetary rewards by being voted as a leader or winning the game. (See [24] for more details).

### **2.3 Measures**

Following Cho and colleagues' recommendation [20], culture was measured both at the macro level in terms of each player's country of residence and also at the individual level in terms of self-construals on the cultural orientations of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism, as well as positive and negative face [20–22]. Before the game began, participants completed a set of self-report measures used by [19] to gauge individuals' cultural orientations along dimensions of individualism–collectivism, horizontal-vertical status, and positive–negative face [22, 23]. In total, six measures were taken: vertical collectivism, vertical individualism, horizontal collectivism, horizontal individualism, positive face, and negative face.

Vertical individualists place value on independent individual achievement and tend to be competitive with others, while vertical collectivists accept inequality in the social structure, value self-sacrifice for group goals and collaborate with others. Horizontal collectivists value cooperation and caring among group members and strive for group harmony. Horizontal individualists value both equality and uniqueness in a way that respects individual decision-making. People high in positive face have a desire to protect their self-esteem by making positive impressions on others, as positive face reflects a felt need for social approval. In contrast, people high in negative face feel a need for interpersonal distance to protect their autonomy and value privacy for both self and others.

### *The Psychology of Trust*

During the game and at its close, participants completed self-report measures to gauge their perceptions of liking, dominance, composure and trust of each other player in their game after an ice-breaker activity and then again after rounds 2, 4, 6, and 8, if the game lasted that many rounds. Because participants responded to these items three to five times about each of the other players, we used single items to avoid fatigue.

### **2.4 Behavioral indicators**

Many of the same behaviors were featured in the various relational messages because they were expected to be highly correlated. In [5], the verbal, kinesic, and vocalic indicators were summarized. Among those that were tested, the significant predictors of trust are noted below with an \*.

Behaviorally, we looked for the following indicators of liking:


Dislike was expected to be signaled primarily by the opposites of these, such as indirect body orientation, lack of backchanneling and mirroring, and absence of relaxed laughter.

For dominance, we looked for these signals:


*The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101182*


Nondominance or deference would be conveyed by the opposites, such as physical rigidity, passive facial expressions, and low visual dominance ratio, higher pitch, few interruptions, shorter turns at talk, and more first-person plural pronouns or third-person pronouns. More of these indicators were vocalic or verbal.

For nervousness, we looked for the following:


We hypothesized that trust would be communicated by those signals associated with messages of liking, moderately high dominance and moderately low nervousness, and that it would be a combination of these signals that would evince and elicit trust.

### **3. Results**

### **3.1 Descriptives**

The number of participants and games played in each country was uneven but contributed to acquiring a diverse sample: U.S. (30 games, 209 players), Singapore (12 games, 84 players), Fiji (14 games, 106 players), Israel (9 games, 64 players), Zambia (15 games, 117 players), and Hong Kong (15 games, 115 players). Player cultural background was quite diverse. Players reported being from 42 different nationalities and over 60 different ethnicities. Participants self-classified as either Asian (38%), white/European (18%), black/African (17%), Fijian/Pacific Islander (15%), Latinx (3%), Middle Eastern (1%), mixed (3%), or other (5%).

Despite this diversity, and interestingly, mean scores across participants on the cultural orientations were more similar than expected. **Figure 2** shows the means for each of the cultural orientations measured, in each of the six countries. Scores in the US, Israel (IL), Hong Kong (HK), and Singapore (SP) were very similar across all of the orientations. Participants in Zambia (ZM) and Fiji (FJ) reported the highest scores on horizontal and vertical collectivism, horizontal individualism, and positive face, but the lowest scores on vertical

### **Figure 2.**

*Mean scores for each cultural orientation by country.*

individualism compared to participants in the other countries. We did not find individualism and collectivism to align with expectations about participants from eastern versus western cultures, nor did we find those two cultural orientations to be orthogonal as originally conceived by Hofstede [21]. Instead, most participants in all six locations reported roughly equal levels of individualism and collectivism. Others have found similar results, sparking debates about whether Hofstede's original conceptualization of the cultural differences needs updating, especially in light of greater cross-cultural communication and globalization in recent decades (e.g., [25, 26].

Games were played in English. 39% of the sample were native English speakers. Among those who were not native speakers, their average self-reported Englishspeaking fluency was quite high (5.82 on a 7-point scale, with higher scores indicating greater fluency.) The average age at which the non-native speakers began to speak English was 6 years. This is not surprising because in all of the countries except Israel where data for this study were collected, English is an official language, and in Israel, English is required as a second language in schools. Thus, individuals in the sample possessed a high level of English language proficiency. Based on this, we feel confident that the results would be very similar as if all players had played the game in their primary language. Future research, however, is needed to understand if differences in the language used for communication influences both the expression and perception of trust.

Experience with similar deception-detection games varied across the locations: 50% or more of the players in Singapore, the U.S., and Hong Kong reported playing a similar game in the past. The number of rounds played within the allotted one-hour period also differed significantly by country, with the most rounds played on average in the U.S. (6.6) and the fewest in Israel (3.6) and Zambia (3.6).

### **3.2 Cultural impact**

Our first analysis was whether culture makes a difference. If results differ by culture, culture must be included as a variable in other analyses or each culture should be measured separately.

Villagers in the six countries varied in their trust of other players. Zambian Villagers reported the lowest trust of all other players in their games with no differentiation between deceivers (Spies) and fellow truth-tellers; whereas Villagers in Singapore reported significantly lower trust of Spies than fellow truth-tellers. Only a little evidence was found to support a relationship between trust and the cultural orientations. Deception detectors higher on vertical individualism (i.e., who are

*The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101182*

competitive and prefer to work alone to defeat an enemy) reported less trust of the deceivers in their games (r = −.11, p < .05), indicating that vertical individualism sensitizes people to deception cues perhaps via the competitiveness aspect of this cultural orientation. That said, the correlation is weak and none of the other cultural orientations were significantly correlated with trust.

We also looked at trust dynamically over the course of the game. The same pattern was found in all countries such that villagers' trust decreased for both truthtellers (other Villagers) and deceivers (Spies) in the early rounds of game play, but then rebounded for trust of truth-tellers (see **Figure 3a**) while continuing to decline for deceivers (see **Figure 3b**).

Despite some variability, the results in the aggregate show limited cultural differences across judgments and behavioral patterns relating to trust. The similarities better warrant a conclusion in favor of the universal cue hypothesis than the specific discrimination perspective when it comes to trust. That said, cultural differences remain a persistent point of interest that warrant continued examination in the future.

### **3.3 Subjective judgments**

For subjective judgments of relational messages, we hypothesized that Spies who display more signals of liking, dominance and composure are trusted more by Villagers.

First, the rating of liking at the end of the game was highly correlated with the post-game ratings of dominance and composure. The more players expressed

**Figure 3.** *Trust of (a) truth-tellers and (b) deceivers over the course of the game by location.*

dominance and composure, the more they were liked. In turn, as predicted by the spiral model, such players were trusted more.

A regression model showed that the Villagers' judgment of Spies' dominance was a significant predictor of trust (R2 = .059). This was true for all the countries sampled, especially Singapore and the U.S. The exception was Israel, where more dominance was associated with less trust, possibly because Israelis already scored high on dominance and might have found extreme dominance to be excessive and suspect.

As another indicator of trust, Villagers identified who they thought were Spies among all the players in their game, and the actual spies were less often judged to be one (R2 = .078).

In detailed results reported by Dunbar et al. [27], Villagers' ratings of Spies on dominance decreased over time, whereas it increased for Villagers as they came to their final game round. Dominance was correlated with trustworthiness. Dominant players may have been more confident in their abilities or perhaps had more charisma and extroverted styles that led them to appear more trustworthy. Despite their increased dominance, Villagers were not more likely to win (the win ratio was nearly 50/50 for Villagers and Spies). Thus, the link between dominance and trustworthiness did not seem to result in outcomes that are beneficial to the players. Ratings of apparent nervousness were only mildly affected by the players' game role: Villagers were less nervous over time than Spies but only slightly so. Villagers became more relaxed, while Spies remained somewhat nervous.

**Figure 4a** and **b** show the pattern of relational messages predicting trust by role, in this case illustrated with the dominance relational message. Although ratings declined initially, ratings of Villagers remained higher than Spies and showed an upswing over time. In other words, the more Villagers communicated moderately high dominance, the more others saw them as trustworthy; Spies expressing dominance were also seen as more trustworthy. The correlation between dominance and trust ranged from .23 in the baseline to .37 at game's end, indicating that moderately high dominance contributed to more trust.

### **3.4 Behavioral relational messages**

Facial expressions can convey a lot of information about one's physical and emotional state. People rely on facial expressions to "collect" both intentional and unintentional meaning during interactions. The Facial Action Coding System

**Figure 4.** *Relationship of dominance to trust, by veracity.*

### *The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101182*

(FACS) [28] was developed as a systematic way to code facial motion by segmenting the face into separate regions (forehead and eyebrows, eyes and cheeks, mouth and chin). Each of the motions, such as an eyebrow raise or an open-mouth smile, is a Facial Action Unit (FAU).

Results from a dissertation showed that dominance was predicted from nonverbal kinesic signals, head movement and vocal signals. As illustration, **Table 1** shows all the facial action units, both means and standard deviations, with significant relationships with dominance [29]. There are several facial muscles involved with various emotional expressions, but the most noticeable effect is high standard deviations, meaning there is a lot of variability or expressiveness. Composure had several relationships, although fewer than dominance, but trust had only two FAUs that emerged as significant. AU23 appeared most frequently. (Liking was not examined.)

Among the most important behavioral vocalic signals in these models were utterance length, harmonic noise ratio (a quality measure), pitch, loudness and shimmer. Longer utterances, more voice quality, deeper pitch, louder, more variability in loudness and more shimmer were more indicative of dominance. These signals were most evident around critical decision points in the game, such as choosing team members and voting on leaders for the mission team.

Liking was most predicted linguistically by the number of sentences. Liking was higher, the more a person spoke multiple sentences. Vocally, it was most predicted by measures of voice quality (harmonic noise ratio standard deviation, jitter standard deviation, and shimmer). These measures of voice quality indicate liking was higher the less the voice HNR and jitter varied and the lower the presence of shimmer. These are indicative of a consistent, unvarying voice.


**Table 1.**

*Linear mixed-model analysis of facial action units related to dominance.*

Nervousness was associated with softer amplitude, more jitter, less dominant language but surprisingly, longer turns at talk. Composure would be the opposites of these, i.e., louder, less jitter, more dominant language, and shorter speaking turns.

Linguistically, trust was most predicted by more turns at talk, more words, and a higher readability score (i.e., more articulate speech). More talk, with a more educated voice, elicited trust.

Does the smallish number of predictors of trust mean there are few nonverbal and verbal signals of it? No. The reason is the interdependence of these variables. They are correlated with one another, so the statistical models using multiple regression identify the signals that account for the most shared and unique variance (have the biggest impact). Although included as possible predictors are all the variables identified above in the 2.4 Behavioral Indicators section, because so many of these variables are highly correlated with another, the statistical models will only retain the most significant variables (i.e., the ones accounting for the most variance). These are the best predictors, but doubtless several other indicators combine with them, or substitute for one another to convey a given meaning. For example, affection can be expressed by smiles, or frequent eye gaze, or touch, or direct facing, or a combination of these, as well as plural first-person pronouns and more intimate language.

What is apparent is that all the communication channels—verbal, kinesic, vocalic, and linguistic--play a role in the trust process and together can convey trust in a very substantial manner. Classification analysis for specificity (i.e., identifying truth-tellers) showed 74 - 79% accuracy in spotting truth tellers, a significant level of discrimination.

### **3.5 Retrospective attention mechanism through computer vision**

One of the unique contributions of the current investigation was the development and application of a computer vision method for retrospectively finding the most meaningful segments in a video. Here we describe the framework and its application to dominance, liking and trust in videos using robust facial features. We create a mechanism to compute the attention of the detection model in the time domain, identifying key frames. We use those key frames to draw conclusions about the kind of micro-expressions that emerge as important during the attentional periods of the model.

The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) [9] was developed as a systematic way to code facial motion with respect to non-overlapping facial muscle actions called Facial Action Units (FAUs).

With so much communicated by the facial expressions, we opted to incorporate facial cues into a system to investigate whether the presence and intensity of some specific facial expressions correlate with how dominant, likable, and trusted a person is perceived by others. For the technically minded, our approach has the following pipeline. A morphable model is superimposed to a subject's face and, with the help of a feature extractor, for each frame of the input video the intensities of 17 Facial Action Units (FAUs) are computed. These are normalized with the parameters of the morphable model, resulting in 17 identity-agnostic FAU intensities. Also, gaze angles of the subject are tracked for each frame of the input video.

The 19 1-dimensional signals (17 FAUs and 2 gaze signals) were concatenated, channel-wise, and this signal was fed as input to a model for video classification. The model used was the Temporal Convolutional Network (or TCN) [30, 31]. We used 250 videos and trained our model to regress dominance, liking and trust using an MSE loss function. Given a trained model, we predicted dominance, liking and trust

*The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101182*

### **Figure 5.**

*Illustration of the proposed framework. FAU intensities and gaze angles are extracted from video sequences which are considered as 1D normalized channel-wise concatenated signals to train a predictor model. Model attention is computed to enable retrospective analysis of dominance, liking and trust.*

**Figure 6.**

*(left) screenshot of frames from original videos; (right) FAU waveforms and attention visualizations of the predictor model. We can see that the model trained for liking identifies as key timesteps, the frames that the subject smiles; lip corner puller (FAU 12) and upper lip raiser are maximally activated at those frames.*

on a test set and retained 25 subjects with the lowest error for further analysis. By using the gradients of the model, we identified the key frames in the input video and performed retrospective analysis on the facial features that are most prevalent in the model's prediction. The overall framework can be seen in **Figure 5**. In **Figure 6**, we can see the attention visualization of the model.

Analysis of the players' facial behaviors revealed that some facial action units including lip stretching, blinking, and fake smiling occurred more frequently during deceptive acts. These might be expected with inauthentic trust. Further analysis of the players' facial muscles suggests that subjects who were more dominant, likable and trusted had more intense facial expressions. Speculatively, it seems that those subjects were more involved in the game and as a result gained the trust of their peers. Furthermore, specific facial expressions, such as smiling and eyebrow raising, emerged more than others.

There were no noticeable differences when examining the FAUs across subjects from different countries, further supporting our intuition that expressions of trust are culture-invariant.

### **4. Discussion and implications**

As part of a cross-cultural, multi-purpose investigation, this project investigated whether trust is signaled by kinesic and vocalic (nonverbal) features and linguistic (verbal) features. Results show that all these features convey relational messages of dominance, liking and composure, which in turn combine to signal trust or distrust. Although the relational messages are moderately correlated with one another, different types of signals are present in each relational message. Whereas both kinesic and vocalic signals play a role in conveying dominance or nondominance, vocalic signals are more prominently featured in composure or nervousness, and facial expressions are especially salient in signaling liking and disliking.

The various indicators, or their perceptual representation, spiral together to form an amalgam of trust. The verbal and nonverbal signals are dynamic, so that their meaning is in flux. Rather than judgments being made anew during each round, it appears that trust is forged from an accretion of meaning built up by the interaction context. For example, in the current task, over the course of several rounds of decision-making, players had the benefit of results from prior rounds to inform their current judgments and build up impressions of other players' trustworthiness. In other words, judgments were cumulative rather than transitory. First impressions may also have set an interpretation frame that colored all that followed. If, for instance, someone had a reputation for dishonesty, nonverbal and verbal signals by that individual might be attached to that initial expectation and help build an impression of someone who should not be trusted. This is often the case when members of law enforcement quickly narrow an investigation to a single suspect and in a hypothesis-confirming manner, interpreting all relational messages to fit their first impression. Scam artists hoping to swindle elders out of their social security checks rely on this principle to create a favorable first impression and continue to build upon it.

Other relational messages may fill out skeletal first impressions, adding, for instance, messages related to involvement, emotional arousal, formality or informality, similarity of dissimilarity, inclusion or exclusion, task or social orientation and so on. The context may dictate which messages may be salient and have a potential connection to trust. The key is to understand that these implicit messages that are exchanged are part of the interaction spiral that forms trust or distrust. It is the communication exchanges and the resultant relational message interpretations that become the psychological template of trust.

Future research could explore expressivity from other kinesic indicators in the trunk, limbs and hands. Which behaviors generate a sense of energy and engagement that promotes trust? In contrast, the behavioral opposites of inexpressiveness and rigidity may generate suspicion. The suspicion and distrust aspect of developing trust is understudied yet quite important to probing relationships in adversarial relationships and relationships in which trust is eroding. Facial impassivity and wooden postures can be a potent clue that someone is being deceptive. Onlookers may develop early suspicions from such behavior apart from anything that is said. People in intimate personal relationships may begin to develop distrust of their partner from such nonverbal behaviors before other actions begin to undermine trust.

An interesting result of our work is that culture did not appear to be a major driver of trust. While we found a few differences in trust patterns across the six countries, and that the cultural orientation of vertical individualism negatively correlated with trust, on balance the results generally support the universal cues hypothesis more than the specific discrimination perspective. These results are in line with some other recent studies of culture and deception (e.g., [17]).

The current investigation, beyond contributing to an understanding of the psychology of trust, presents a number of methodological advances that have, or could be made. Many insights come from the dissertation of Walls [29] in using artificial intelligence to transform behavior into actionable insights. Walls observes that before significant accuracy can be achieved in creating a set of classifiers for predicting trust, measurement decisions must be made about the length and

### *The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101182*

duration of units of observation to be used. Whether analysis is at the level of individual turns at talk, interact exchanges between pairs or clique groups, phases of decision-making, or entire rounds of a game can alter estimates of accuracy. Also, eliminating periods of silence in videotaped recordings and narrowing judgments to meaningful segments such as voting periods can also alter and improve predictive accuracy. The parameters of the classification models can be learned in a datadriven approach using machine learning techniques.

This research successfully demonstrates that automatic action unit extractions and feature creation for facial analysis, combined with the latest in computer vision techniques, represent an unbiased analysis of videos that brings an understanding of trust. Model building is accomplished using feature creation algorithms, machine learning techniques, and analysis. This project has demonstrated the utility of this approach by using the same analysis to predict team selection, leader elections and game wins. That is, the design has replications built into it. Such within-subject designs have the benefit of controlling other sources of "noise" such as personality or gender because those sources of variance remain constant across the replications. Thus, the system design is general in that it can discover connections to any set of cues.

Another innovation of the research reported here is the use of the attention mechanism to locate sparsely exhibited behaviors and identify the key frames in the video that may be especially consequential in understanding trust. Just as interpersonal relationships have trajectories that change at turning points, key frames may signal those important turning points that signpost the positive or negative development of trust. For example, disclosure of highly intimate details about one's past may encourage reciprocal disclosure from the partner and escalate the relationship's mutual trust to the next level. In videos consisting of thousands of frames, the ability to locate the points at which turning points occur can be very useful.

The use of the attention mechanism can alleviate the need to label every timestep of importance in the video. We store only meta-data for each video, such as the subject's role, and use the attention mechanism to identify the important timesteps in the video. Those vary depending on the task that the model is trained for. In that way, we can perform retrospective analysis of those frames, while keeping the data collection protocol simple.

A further next step in research would be to use the key frames identified by the attention mechanism to re-train the model. Re-training the model can be useful for large input videos, since the models can ignore the majority of the input frames, which are irrelevant for the modeling task.

Future collaborations with others investigating behavioral networks of linguistics, vocalics, and kinesics is sure to bring new discriminating features to the machine learning techniques. This is easy to do with the current developed methods since they can be used with different modalities. Only one step to transform every modality to a canonical input form is required. Obtaining new features can be accomplished by having new experimental participants watch the game videos and record their perceptions of trust.

The psychology of trust is a rich construct for investigation. Examination of how it develops through implicit relational messages promises to bring greater understanding of the construct. New software and automated computer vision tools can accelerate and amplify the progress of those investigations.

### **Acknowledgements**

This research was sponsored by the Army Research Office and was accomplished under Grant Number W911NF-16-1-0342. The views and conclusions contained in

this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Office or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation herein.

### **Conflict of interest**

Judee Burgoon and Jay Nunamaker are principals in Discern Science International, a for-profit entity conducting research and systems development for credibility assessment. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.

### **Notes/thanks/other declarations**

The authors wish to thank Bradley Dorn, Rebecca (Xinran) Wang, Xunyu Chen, Steven Pentland, Lee Spitzley, Tina Ge, Matt Giles, Mohammed Hansia, Chris Otmar, Yibei Chen, Becky Ford, Ligong Han, and Lezi Wang for their contributions to conducting this research.

### **Author details**

Judee K. Burgoon1 \*, Norah E. Dunbar2 , Miriam Metzger2 , Anastasis Staphopoulis3 , Dimitris Metaxas3 and Jay F. Nunamaker1


\*Address all correspondence to: judee@email.arizona.edu

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*The Psychology of Trust from Relational Messages DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101182*

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Section 3
