A new paper in Scientific Reports by Jordan Schotz (ADDL PhD student), Trenton Lam (former ADDL RA), Dr. Natalie Ebner (UF), and Dr. Lighthall describes the effects of visual cues of trustworthiness on trust-related decision-making in social versus nonsocial economic game contexts.
Using the Multi-Round Trust Game, this study showed that social and nonsocial visual cues with comparable perceived trustworthiness had similar effects on investment behavior. However, the study indicated that nonsocial visual cues may need to be more explicitly valenced (e.g., positive and negative scenes) to yield the same effects as relatively subtle social visual cues (neutral faces with subjectively trustworthy/untrustworthy facial features). Additionally, findings suggested that memory for trustees was influenced by visual social cues to a greater extent in the social versus nonsocial condition, particularly when social partners had low levels of reciprocity.
These results highlight the inherent salience of social information in trust-based decision-making and memory. Congratulations, Jordan and team!
