Trust:Not a Key but The Key to Prosocial Behavior

Paul A.M. Van Lange

VU University Amsterdam

Van der Gaag Symposium (June 24, 2014)

For updated information, see

www.paulvanlange.com

The KEY task for authorities (and peers) is to

Manage Conflicts between Self-Interest and Collective Interest

- Promoting a sustainable society

- Promoting a healthy society

- Promoting a prosperous society

- Promoting a safe society

- And in a sense, promoting a fair society (and trusting society)

Across various social dilemmas, key variables are:

1. Social value orientation (motives/goals)

2. Reward and punishment (tools for peers and authorities)

3. Trust (state of mind)

Van Lange, P. A. M. Balliet, D., Parks, C. D., & Van Vugt, M. (2014). Social dilemmas: The psychology of human cooperation. New York: Oxford University Press.

Decomposed Game (for measuring SVO)

____________________________________________

A B C

You get 480 540 480

Other gets 80 280 480____________________________________________

Note: “Other” is hypothetical. Points are valuable to both self and other.

Social Value Orientations:

(1) prosocial orientation (50-60%)joint outcomes and equality in outcomes(MaxJoint and Mindiff)

(2) individualistic orientation (20-30%)Own outcomes (MaxOwn)

(3) competitive orientation (10-15%)Relative advantage (MaxRel)

Social interactions

prosocials develop cooperative interaction, but rapidly assimilate to noncooperative others; individualists cooperate if they can benefit by doing so; competitors hardly ever cooperate.

Prosocials = Conditional cooperatorsIndividualists = Instrumental cooperatorsCompetitors = Consistent noncooperators

- Willingness to sacrifice in close relationships

- Smiling when we talk, not when we pose for a picture to be taken

- Donations to noble causes

- Neuroscientific evidence regarding responses to violations of justice

- Volunteering, including participating in experiments!

Where do differences in social value orientation come from?:

Social value orientations are partially rooted in different patterns of social interaction spanning from early childhood to young adulthood.

Prosocials Individ's Competi-tors

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Number of Siblings

SVO and Siblings

Van Lange, P.A.M.,Otten,W., De Bruin, E.N.M., & Joireman , J.A. (1997). Development of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive orientation: Theory and preliminary evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 733-746

Prosocials Individual-ists

Com-petitors

0

0.5

1

1.5

Number of Sisters

Prosocials

Individ-ualists

Com-petitors

0

0.5

1

1.5

Older Siblings

Age and SVO

15-29 30-44 45-59 60+0

102030405060708090

100

ProsocialsIndividualistsCompetitors

(Van Lange, P.A.M.,Otten,W., De Bruin, E.N.M., & Joireman , J.A. (1997). Development of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive orientation: Theory and preliminary evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 733-746.

Age Category

But personality – including svo - is not only shaped by circumstances, it is also revealed in the selection (or avoiding) of situations…

Percentages among first-year students

Psychology Economics0

102030405060708090

100

ProsocialsIndividualistsCompetitors

Van Lange, P. A. M., Schippers, M., & Balliet, D. (2011). Who volunteers in psychology experiments? An empirical review of prosocial motivation in volunteering. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 297-284. 

Psychology Economics(n= 158) (n = 150)

Prosocials 57% 36%Individualists 37% 47%Competitors 6% 17%

Van Lange, P. A. M., Schippers, M., & Balliet, D. (2011). Who volunteers in psychology experiments? An empirical review of prosocial motivation in volunteering. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 297-284. 

Two studies

Study 2: Italy (497 participants, 250 women, mean age 32 years)

svo was measured 1-4 weeks before the 2004 European Election actual voting was assessed one week after Election

Study 3: Netherlands (1,472 participants, 751 women, mean age 46 years, sample representative of Dutch Adult population, TNS/NIPO)

svo assessed in May 2002, eight months before general elections in January 2003, after which we assessed voting.

Percentages of svo across four categories (Study 2, Italy, 2004)

0102030405060708090

100

Left Center-L Center-R Right

ProsocialsIndividualistsCompetitors

Van Lange, P. A. M., Bekkers, R., Chirumbolo, A., & Leone, L. (2012).  Are conservatives less likely to be prosocial than liberals?  From games to ideology,political preferences and voting.  European Journal of Personality, 26, 461-473.

Percentages of svo across four categories (Study 3, Netherlands, 2002)

0102030405060708090

100

Left Center Right

ProsocialsIndividualistsCompetitors

Van Lange, P. A. M., Bekkers, R., Chirumbolo, A., & Leone, L. (2012).  Are conservatives less likely to be prosocial than liberals?  From games to ideology,political preferences and voting.  European Journal of Personality, 26, 461-473.

Social value orientation= motivation

if you want to act prosocially, you doCooperation in social dilemmas

= motivationif you want to act cooperatively, you

can

But often, we may not act prosocially simply because we did not consider, or even “see” that prosocial or “cooperative” option...

Social mindfulness

One morning on a vacation trip in Italy, my son Dion (then about 11 years old) asked me which marmalade I was going to get for breakfast. There were three left, one blackberry and two strawberry marmalade.

I said: blackberry (while I read the newspaper)

He said: But that is not very nice, dad. You do not leave my any choice, if you choose blackberry.

This was an excellent idea … theoretically and methodologically.

It combines “to see it” (perception and skill) with “acting upon it” (motivation) to produce “socially mindful” behavior.

(Literature always focused on either perception or motivation)

To see that one blocks another’s route with a shopping cart !

We constructed a measure (based on earlier work of Hazel Markus and Toshio Yamagishi) which we call “social mindfulness. It asks people to make a choice among 3 options (2 identical, 1 unique) concerning cups of marmalade, pens, hats, soccer balls, and so on.

Or we used four pictures with one unique attribute, or sometimes no unique attributes (as filler)

Filler

Recent findings (to start a new line of research)

[a] Instructing Concern for Others enhances social mindfulness

[b] People are more socially mindful to friends than to strangers

[c] People are more socially mindful to those with trustworthy faces

than to those with untrustworthy faces

[d] Associated with honesty/humility (r = .32), agreeableness (r = .24), social value orientation (r = .40), and empathic concern (r = .28) and perspective taking (r = .21) (but not disstress, r = .07, ns, or other Big Five variables)

Van Doesum, N., Van Lange, D. A. W., & Van Lange, P A. M. (2013). Social mindfulness: Skill and will to navigate the social world. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 86-103.

Social value orientation and social mindfulness

- Basic orientations, relevant to many situations, and people might automatically rely on these “natural” tendencies. The focus is on the self – as motivator, perceiver, or both.

- For trust, this is different. There is a lot of contextual information that feeds or undermines trust (other’s face, race, age …). The focus is on the other that we perceive (even if through our own lens).

Social dilemmas: Reward and Punishment

Paradigm (Fehr & Gächter, 2002):people are able to punish another person in a four-person group; they pay one MU so that another person loses 3 MU.

Fehr, E., Gächter, S. (2002). Altruistic punishment in humans. Nature, 415, 137-140.

Reward and Punishment

- Both incentives work – about equally well

- Works better if the punishment is more costly

- Strong cultural influences

Balliet, D., Mulder, L. B., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2011). Reward, punishment, andcooperation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 137, 594-615.

Balliet, D. P., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2013).  Trust, punishment, and cooperation across 18 societies. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 363-379.

AustraliaNetherlandsSouth Korea

ItalyChina

GermanyDanmark

SwitzerlandIsrael

United StatesUK

BelarusTurkey

South AfricaUkraineRussia

Saudi ArabiaGreece

-0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5

Effectiveness of Punishment on Cooperation (expressed in mean differences scores)

Generalized Trust is also strongly shaped by culture

Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with

people?” (1 = most people can be trusted and 2 = you can never be too careful when dealing with people).

Levels of Trust in Various Nations (World Values Survey)

TurkeySouth Africa

IsraelGreeceRussia

UKUSAItaly

GermanyChina

NetherlandsSwitzerland

Balliet, D. P., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2013).  Trust, punishment, and cooperation across 18 societies. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 363-379.

Generalized Trust

What is most efficient?

(a) If everybody cooperates, AND(b) If nobody punishes

For both beliefs, prosociality AND trust are crucial!

But can one influence prosociality and trust?

What have I learned about trust?

1. We trust strangers too little – most likely because we rely on a theory of self-interest (myth of self-interest)

2. One can indeed influence trust – it is biologically based, but is it genetically based?

3. It is a powerful correlate and determinant of cooperation in social dilemmas

• For review see, Balliet D., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2013). Trust, conflict, and cooperation: A meta analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 1090-1112.

Genetics of Trust  1. I dare to put my fate in the hands of most other people2. I completely trust most other people 3. When push comes to shove, I do not trust most other people ®

1,012 twins participants, with good representation of all five twin groups (identical twins, men, women; non-identical, men, women, mixed)

Test-retest reliability over two months: r = .76 (and .54, for trust-in-self)

Average heritability for traits other than trust (49%, and this includes measurements with lower test-retest reliability.

• Intelligence (h2 ~ 80%)

• Depression (h2 ~ 50%)

• Classic personality variables (h2 ~ 40%)

• Divorce, satisfaction with work, AND political orientation (h2 > 30%)

So, what is the heritability of (Generalized) Trust?

Guesses?

0 – 25%25-50%50-75%75-100%

Trust in Others: h2 = 5%

Trust in Self: h2 = 13%

Van Lange, P.A.M., Vinkhuyzen, A., & Posthuma, D. (2014). Genetic influences are virtually absent for trust. PLoS ONE 9(4): e93880.

1. Trust is the key to prosocial behavior:

- because cooperation without trust is largely a utopia unlikely to be materialized

- because trust promotes the effectiveness of various variables or interventations, such as reward and punishment

- because trust is a malleable state of mind (orientation)

Trust is a “state of mind”, largely nongenetic, and the sources of promoting trust are “tremendous”

Reciprocity-based trustReputation-based trustIdentity-based trustFace-based trust “Association”-based trust (perhaps embodiment)

THM #1: USE THESE SOURCES!

Trust may even help you to go for that risky action that one only does if there is enough (perceived) support from others.

So, with the World Cup all around, my THM # 2 is simple….

Without trust in one anotherone never wins

Trust is a challenge – for both actors and “observers“

- leaders invite distrust because of unilateraldependence – “better safe than sorry”

- and leaders do become a littlle less trustworthy overtime.

Van Prooijen, J. W., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2014, Eds). Power, politics, and paranoia: Why people are suspicious of their leaders. Cambridge University Press.