The Trust Foundation Understanding trust issues in the digital era.

"The extent to which I do or do not trust you is a function not only of how trusting a person I am and what I know about you, but also a function of irrelevant events that have influenced my emotional state. For example, if I hit a parked car, argued with my spouse, learned that I have to pay a large repair bill (or won an award, had a paper accepted, or saw my stock account grow) beforehand, I would trust you less (or more). The main idea...is that emotions which are irrelevant to the judgment task nevertheless influence trust judgments in predictable ways."

This is Part 2 of a continuing series highlighting trust research conducted by researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. For a look back at Part 1, click here.

I recently found a very interesting article from July 27, 2005 entitled "Looking to Make a Sale or Get Promoted? Emotions Will Help Determine the Outcome". The article discusses a study, "Feeling and Believing: The Influence of Emotion on Trust", by Maurice E. Schweitzer, Wharton professor of operations and information management, and Jennifer Dunn, a colleague, whose findings extend far beyond the realm of business into all of human interaction.

In the study, participants' emotions were evoked through asking them to recall happy/sad/angry memories, or through watching video clips, such as a clip of a funny Robin Williams stand-up routine or a troubling scene from Witness, where teenagers harass an Amish man.

While conventional trust research has stated that trust of another person is a function of an individual's propensity to trust combined with what an individual knows about another person, this study shows that there is a much less rational component to trust. People who have experienced happy emotions are significantly more likely to trust than people who have experienced sad emotions or angry emotions. People who have experienced sad emotions are significantly more likely to trust than people who have experienced angry emotions, but significantly less likely to trust than people who have experienced happy emotions. People who have experienced angry emotions are significantly less likely to trust than people who have experienced either happy or sad emotions.

This is a little troubling because it means that people can manipulate your propensity to trust them by evoking your emotions. Anything, from a good joke or a compliment, a nice smell or a comforting sound, a positive photo or video, can evoke emotions of happiness and in doing so, increase your likelihood to trust in the short-term.

One comforting finding of the study is that people, when made aware of their altered emotional state, do not show increased or decreased levels of trust relative to their baseline level. Essentially, this means the universal advice of keeping a cool head in emotional situations has a very solid basis based on the findings of the study.

I'm aware of advertisers using humor to win over viewers. Have you found evidence of trust manipulation via positive emotion stimulation on the Internet? I'd be curious to see if anyone can unearth some obvious examples. One that I have in mind are those online banner ad games--swat the fly, throw the water balloon at the jumping girl, win the race, etc. These games are entertaining, but are also clearly designed to permit easy winning. When you win a game, you generally are happy. Upon winning one of these ad-games, you are immediately directed to the advertiser's web page, disarmed with an elevated level of trust.