People tend to place faith in individuals who experienced lower financial means during their upbringing, possibly due to the perceived resilience, humility, and hard work these individuals exhibit.
People are more likely to trust individuals from low-income backgrounds over those who have enjoyed privileged upbringings, according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association. This research, led by Kristin Laurin, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, reveals that people perceive those with humble beginnings as more moral and trustworthy, both in terms of actions and expectations.
The study focused on the factors that influence trust decisions and found that childhood social class has a stronger impact on trustworthiness than current wealth status. While participants were willing to behave trustingly towards both current and past lower-income individuals, they only believed those with modest childhoods would reciprocate that trust.
In various experiments involving more than 1,900 participants, researchers examined how someone's social class—both while growing up and at present—affects their trustworthiness in the eyes of strangers. One experiment involved a trust game, where participants were asked to transfer raffle tickets to other players, with the understanding that the transferred tickets would be tripled and the recipient could decide to return some or all of them.
The study found that participants gave more raffle tickets, demonstrating greater behavioral trust, to individuals with lower-income backgrounds. However, they only believed a player was trustworthy when that player came from a lower-income childhood.
Laurin explained that people tend to draw a clear line between someone's childhood and their current situation, seeing those who grew up in lower-income households as more moral and trustworthy. While they sometimes acted as if they trusted those currently from lower-income groups, they did not always believe those individuals would honor that trust.
Laurin and her team noted that their findings suggest people may want to be strategic in how they present themselves in social situations where trust is a component. If someone has always been wealthy, for instance, they might choose to downplay that history and focus on their current circumstances. On the other hand, if someone has always struggled financially, emphasizing their humble roots could be more advantageous.
However, the study did not examine whether a person's childhood or current class background actually influences their behavior, leaving that question for future research. Laurin emphasized the importance of understanding when trust is misplaced or when people miss opportunities to trust others fairly.
In summary, this research provides insights into the factors that influence trust decisions, showing that people tend to trust others more if they come from lower-income childhood backgrounds due to moral perceptions, whereas current wealth status affects trust differently, linked more to altruism than to moral expectations. The findings suggest strategic opportunities for individuals to present themselves in a way that may increase trust in social situations where it is crucial. However, further research is needed to determine whether these perceptions accurately reflect the trustworthiness of individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
- The study in neuroscience news, led by Kristin Laurin, delved into the domain of psychology, addressing factors influencing trust decisions and how these are affected by an individual's childhood social class, as reported in science journals under health-and-wellness.
- The findings from neuroscience, presented by Laurin, indicate that an individual from a lower-income childhood background is perceived as more trustworthy, as a result of moral perceptions, while current wealth status influences trust in a way linked more to altruism than to moral expectations.
