Do people's worldviews change across the life course? Beliefs in the benevolence (goodness) of the world and their relations with age and well-being were examined in a 2-year study of a nationally representative sample (N = 2,138) ranging in age from 18 to 101 years. Multilevel modeling analyses controlling for demographics, mental health history, prior experience with stressful life events, an...

In three experiments, we investigate how 187 3- to 5-year-olds weigh competence and benevolence when deciding whom to trust. Children were presented with two informants who provided conflicting labels for novel objects--one informant was competent, but mean, the other incompetent, but nice. Across experiments, we manipulated the order in which competence and benevolence were presented and the w...

Asmachines become capable ofmore autonomous and intelligent behavior, will they also display more morally desirable behavior? Earth’s history tends to suggest that increasing intelligence, knowledge, and rationality will result in more cooperative and benevolent behavior. Animals with sophisticated nervous systems track and punish exploitative behavior, while rewarding cooperation. Humans form ...

By adopting social exchange theory and the affect-infusion-model, the hypothesis is made that emotional intelligence (EI) will have an impact on three perceptions of trustworthiness – ability, integrity and benevolence – at the beginning of a relationship. It was also hypothesized that additional information would gradually displace EI in forming the above perceptions. The results reveal that E...

Philosophers, psychologists, and economists have long asserted that deception harms trust. We challenge this claim. Across four studies, we demonstrate that deception can increase trust. Specifically, prosocial lies increase the willingness to pass money in the trust game, a behavioral measure of benevolence-based trust. In Studies 1a and 1b, we find that altruistic lies increase trust when dec...

Several studies have identified the crucial role of trust in internet shopping behavior. Technical developments have produced new forms of e-commerce such as commerce through the largest worldwide social network: Shopping on Facebook. Our research investigates the role of trust in facebook-shopping. Our findings show that perceptions of the e-retailer’s benevolence and integrity have a stronger...

Cooperation is fundamental to the evolution of human society. We regularly observe cooperative behaviour in everyday life and in controlled experiments with anonymous people, even though standard economic models predict that they should deviate from the collective interest and act so as to maximise their own individual payoff. However, there is typically heterogeneity across subjects: some may ...