Reducing exposure to trust-related risks to avoid self-blame
Journal
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Subject
Organisational Behaviour
Publishing details
Authors / Editors
Effron D A;Miller D T
Biographies
Publication Year
2011
Abstract
Three studies demonstrated that anticipated self-blame elicits more conservative decisions about risks that require trust than about otherwise economically identical risks that do not. Participants were more reluctant to invest money in a company when it risked failure due to fraud versus low consumer demand (Study 1), and to risk points in an economic game when its outcome ostensibly depended on another participant versus chance (Studies 2 and 3). These effects were mediated by anticipated self-blame (Studies 1 and 2). Additionally, participants who actually experienced a loss felt more self-blame when the loss violated their trust and became even more conservative in subsequent risk decisions relative to participants whose loss did not violate their trust (Study 3). No support emerged for alternative explanations based on either the perceived probability of incurring a loss or an aversion to losses that profit others. The motivational power of trust violations is discussed.
Keywords
Trust; Risk; Self-blame; Exploitation; Sucker effect; Decision making; Invest; Regret; Trust game
Available on ECCH
No