The influence of emotions on trust in experienced betrayal situations

Abstract

This article investigates the impact of different emotions on trust decisions taking the experience of betrayal into account. Thus, an experiment was created which included one betrayal group and one control group. Participants in the betrayal group experienced more intense feelings governed by negative emotions than participants in the control group did. Moreover, participants in the betrayal group significantly lowered their trusts in another stranger. In addition, our results indicated that the feeling of shame in connection with an experienced betrayal was linked to an individual’s lowering of his or her subsequent trust levels. On the other hand, we found some evidence that emotional intelligence (the use-of-emotions) attenuated the relationship between experienced betrayal and subsequent trust whereas neuroticism exaggerated this relationship.