Decomposing Trust and Trustworthiness

What motivates people to trust and be trustworthy? Is trust solely “calculative,” based on the expectation of trustworthiness, and trustworthiness only reciprocity? Employing a withinsubject design, we ran investment and dictator game experiments in Russia, South Africa and the United States. Additionally, we measured risk preferences and expectations of trustworthiness. Expectations of trustworthiness account for most of the variance in trust, but unconditional kindness also matters. Variance in trustworthiness is mainly accounted for by unconditional kindness, while reciprocity plays a comparatively small role. There exists some heterogeneity in motivation but people behave surprisingly similarly in the three countries studied.