Restraint in shared-resource use signals trust in others

Evidence

In one of our first empirical studies, we explored the social psychological underpinnings of cooperative choice in this simulated commons dilemma (Messick et al., 1983). Specifically, we investigated how individuals’ “expectations of reciprocity” influence their willingness to exercise personal self-restraint when sharing common resources. Such expectations represent one important cognitive component of trust, of course. Similarly, people’s willingness to exercise personal self-restraint when consuming shared resource pools can be viewed as a behavioral indicator of their trust in others. — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 1951

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘expectations of reciprocity’ as a cognitive component of trust, and positions restraint as its behavioral indicator.