Trust in morality versus trust in competence: A comparative analysis

许多日常情况需要信任我们人类同胞的能力（例如，去看医生或坐火车）。尽管胜任力在许多研究领域被认为是可信性的一个重要方面，但社会心理学的研究迄今为止对胜任力信任的关注还很少。因此，本研究的目的是系统地比较道德信任和能力信任的性质和因果决定因素。许多研究表明，对他人道德的信任并不主要来自工具性的、利润最大化的计算，而是主要受道德规范的指导。出于尊重，人们不想向另一个人表示他们的不信任，即使在认知水平上，他们判断他们的互动伙伴的道德水平很低，即使在类似的非社会决策情况下（例如，但他们不愿意承担同等的风险。基于创新的实验方法，本研究项目能够直接比较，否则结构相同的道德和能力相关的信任决策。首先，对道德或能力的信任将被衡量为经济博弈中的特定行为--在先前研究中已知的信任博弈和专门为本研究项目开发的能力博弈中，决定互动结果的不是受托人的道德，而是受托人的能力。另一方面，认知信任（即，对互动伙伴的信任度的期望）以及与信任决定有关的道德规范和情感，将进行评估，以便对道德和能力方面的基本结构和信任决定因素进行比较分析。一个特别的重点是在能力的信任是否和在什么条件下有类似的特点，以信任的道德和在什么条件下，在能力的信任更类似于非社会风险的决定的问题。在这方面，有人认为，相关的能力方面的自尊的受托人可能会发挥核心作用。也就是说，道德规范的尊重应该只有在基本的能力维度被认为是与受托人的自尊有关的情况下才能对信托决策产生实质性影响。此外，还将以探索性的方式研究人们同时信任另一个人的道德和能力的决策的属性和因果决定因素。

Many everyday situations require trust in the competence of our fellow human beings (e.g., visiting the doctor or taking a train ride). Although competence has been identified as an important facet of trustworthiness in many research fields, research in social psychology has so far paid little attention to trust in competence. Therefore, the aim of this research project is a systematic comparison of the properties and causal determinants of trust in morality and of trust in competence. Numerous studies were able to show that trust in the morality of other people does not mainly result from an instrumental, profit-maximizing calculation but is instead primarily guided by moral norms. Out of respect people do not want to signal their distrust to another person, even though at the cognitive level, they judge the morality of their interaction partners to be low and even though in similar non-social decision-making situations (e.g., lotteries), they are unwilling to take equivalent risks. Based on innovative experimental methods, this research project enables a direct comparison of otherwise structurally identical morality- and competence-related trust decisions. For one thing, trust in morality or competence will be measured as specific behavior in economic games – in the trust game known from previous research and in a competence game specially developed for this research project in which it is not the morality but the competence of a trustee that determines the outcome of the interaction. For another thing, cognitive trust (i.e., expectations regarding the trustworthiness of interaction partners) as well as the moral norms and emotions relevant in the context of the trust decision will be assessed in order to allow for a comparative analysis of the basic structures and determinants of trust in morality and competence. A particular focus is on the questions of whether and under what conditions trust in competence has similar characteristics to trust in morality and under what conditions trust in competence is more akin to non-social risk decisions. In this regard, it is argued that the relevance the respective competence dimension has to the self-esteem of the trustee might play a central role. That is, moral norms of respect should only substantially influence trust decisions if the underlying competence dimension is considered to be relevant to the self-esteem of the trustee. In addition, the properties and causal determinants of decisions in which people simultaneously trust in the morality and the competence of another person will be investigated in an explorative way.