Trust miscalibration across cultures and social classes

Do people accurately judge how trustworthy others are? Trust in strangers underpins modern societies, yet people sometimes misjudge others’ trustworthiness, with potentially detrimental implications for social cohesion and public well-being. In pre-registered studies across 23 countries (N = 9,758), we quantify the trust gap: the discrepancy between people’s belief about how many people would return a wallet lost in the street and how many people actually do return it. In line with prior research, people in Western, high-income countries underestimated others’ trustworthiness. However, people in non-Western, low- and middle-income countries overestimated trustworthiness. As anticipated, the trust gap varied with socio-economic status within countries: People of lower socio-economic status were more likely to underestimate others’ trustworthiness than people of higher socio-economic status, consistent with exploitation being more costly for people with fewer resources. Finally, a randomized controlled trial showed that informing participants about actual wallet return rates reduces trust miscalibration. Information provision led those who had underestimated others’ trustworthiness to increase their generalized trust, and those who had overestimated others’ trustworthiness to decrease their generalized trust. These findings demonstrate the value of studying the psychology of trust beyond high-income individuals and societies; and of providing accurate information about everyday cooperation to reduce miscalibrations in how people trust one another.