Getting off on the wrong foot: the timing of a breach and the restoration of trust.
Few interpersonal relationships endure without one party violating the other's expectations. Thus, the ability to build trust and to restore cooperation after a breach can be critical for the preservation of positive relationships. Using an iterated prisoner's dilemma, this article presents two experiments that investigated the effects of the timing of a trust breach-at the start of an interaction, after 5 trials, after 10 trials, or not at all. The findings indicate that getting off on the wrong foot has devastating long-term consequences. Although later breaches seemed to limit cooperation for only a short time, they still planted a seed of distrust that surfaced in the end.
Lount
Robert B
RB
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. Lount@fisher.osu.edu
Zhong
Chen-Bo
CB
Sivanathan
Niro
N
Murnighan
J Keith
JK
D002755:Choice Behavior; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012938:Social Perception; D035502:Trust / Q000523:psychology*