Bonnefon, Jean-François, De Neys, Wim and Hopfensitz, Astrid (2012) The Modular Nature of Trustworthiness Detection. TSE Working Paper, n. 12-311

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Abstract

The capacity to trust wisely is a critical facilitator of success and prosperity, and it has been
conjectured that people of higher intelligence were better able to detect signs of untrustworthiness
from potential partners. In contrast, this article reports five Trust Game studies suggesting
that reading trustworthiness on the faces of strangers is a modular process. Trustworthiness
detection from faces is independent of general intelligence (Study 1) and effortless (Study 2).
Pictures that include non-facial features such as hair and clothing impair trustworthiness detection
(Study 3) by increasing reliance on conscious judgments (Study 4), but people largely
prefer to make decisions from this sort of pictures (Study 5). In sum, trustworthiness detection
in an economic interaction is a genuine and effortless ability, possessed in equal amount
by people of all cognitive capacities, but whose impenetrability leads to inaccurate conscious
judgments and inappropriate informational preferences.