The Effects of a Trust Violation in a Team Decision-making Task: Exploring the Affective Component of Trust

Trust is an attitude that influences the intention 'to be vulnerable to another party when that party cannot be controlled or monitored' (Mayer, Davis & Schoorman, 1995, p.712) and is important for work teams. Like all attitudes, the affective component of trust consists of an immediate evaluation and a response that is more deliberate and effortful. Capturing both aspects of the affective component may allow researchers to gain a more complete understanding of how trust develops. Implicit attitudes are an automatic affective response and may reflect the immediate evaluation component of trust. Explicit attitudes may reflect the more effortful and deliberate affective process that contributes to trust. In this study, 108 participants worked with two virtual teammates in two sessions. In session one, participants worked with a "fair" teammate and an "unfair" teammate on a financial decision-making task. The fair teammate shared the team earnings evenly with the participant, whereas the unfair teammate exploited the participant by taking most of the team earnings. In session two teammate behavior changed; either the fair teammate in the first session became unfair or the unfair teammate became fair. Participants completed measures of Emotion Management Ability, Fluid Intelligence, personality and Implicit and Explicit Affective Attitude Change. Participants also recorded the Economic Offer they would entrust to each teammate, Self-Report Trust and a perceived trustworthiness measure. The researcher explored whether teammate generosity affected trust and implicit attitude toward the teammates and whether change in trust in the unfair teammate would be associated with affective attitude change. Analyses revealed Explicit Affective Attitude Change significantly predicted both Self-Report Trust and Economic Offer, after controlling for cognitive predictors of trust. Implicit attitude predicted only Self-Report Trust and this prediction was moderated by Emotion Management Ability. Implicit Attitude Change also significantly predicted Explicit Attitude Change demonstrating an indirect influence on trust. Also, Agreeableness (A) was associated with change in implicit and explicit attitude. In addition, both measures of trust did increase significantly when the unfair teammate attempted to repair trust in Session Two, although trust never regained the levels obtained at baseline. These findings provide support for affects role in trust development and suggest both implicit and explicit attitude measures should be considered when predicting trust. The current study also suggests Emotion Management Ability may suppress implicit attitudes direct influence on trust. Future research should explore how other trust violations, such as incompetence, might impact affects role in trust development.