Expecting rationality yields better predictions of behavior than expecting irrationality.

Evidence

Because general optimism about the trustworthiness of others enables us to enter mutually beneficial relations, we might readily conclude that a utilitarian should encourage such optimism. It does not follow that the utilitarian should be more trusting, however, because a person’s degree of trust is determined by the knowledge that the person has. I speak in this chapter of the street-level epistemology of trust, which is the knowledge—good or bad—that a person develops through ordinary life experiences. That knowledge includes the capacity to assess the trustworthiness of others in light of relevant evidence. This epistemology is subjective in the sense that it is a theory of the knowledge of a particular person rather than of the correctness of claims of knowledge in the abstract, which is the usual focus of philosophical epistemology. All that the utilitarian should do is encourage pessimistic distrusters to take risks on cooperating with others up to the level that the utilitarian thinks is justified in the relevant population. In the model discussed in this chapter, one might go somewhat further and say that the utilitarian should encourage people to take somewhat greater risks than what the utilitarian, on present expectations, thinks correct, because the more open person will have greater opportunity to learn from experience than the less open person. Hence erring on the side of optimism is more readily corrected than erring on the side of pessimism. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 529 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Erring toward optimistic trust is easier to correct than erring toward pessimism. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 529; Attitudes and emotions predict discrimination better than stereotypes do. — Erik Bleich, What Is Islamophobia and How Much Is…, 32; Expert and lay predictions of obedience were wrong by a wide margin — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 437 (+1 more)

Related

• Erring toward optimistic trust is easier to correct than erring toward pessimism. (similarity 0.88)
• Differences in trust are epistemological, not psychological or irrational. (similarity 0.80)
• Rational trust requires both trusted’s incentives and truster’s knowledge (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Erring toward optimistic trust is easier to correct than erring toward pessimism. #complicates (0.75) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 529