Optimal trusters materially outperform both distrusters and excessive trusters

Evidence

The optimal truster will have the largest actual payoff from risking cooperation, as represented by the large triangle T0M. The distruster pessimistically expects the much smaller expected payoff represented by the small triangle L0M but receives the larger actual payoff represented by the trapezoidal area L0ML’. The high truster overoptimistically expects the payoff of the very large area H0M but receives the smaller actual payoff that is the optimal trust payoff (T0M) less the loss represented by the small triangle HTH’. The latter triangular area represents the losses from too optimistically trusting those who are unlikely to be trustworthy. The difference in payoffs for the three conditions of trust could be enormous, with the optimal truster several times better off than the distruster. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 560

Categorization

• XREF: This expected-payoff ranking supports the reader’s core claim: the wife’s calibrated trust (optimistic enough to engage, prudent enough not to overtrust) outperforms both the paranoid and the naive modes of behavior that dominate the blind society.