An unusual new study of college
students’ interactions with a robot has shed light on why we intuitively trust
some people and distrust others. While many people assume that behaviors like
avoiding eye contact and fidgeting are signals that a person is being
dishonest, scientists have found that no single gesture or expression
consistently predicts trustworthiness. But researchers from Northeastern
University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell recently
identified four distinct behaviors that, together, appear to warn our brains
that a person can’t be trusted. The research could one day be used to develop
computer programs that can rapidly assess behavior in airports or elsewhere to
flag security risks. In the first experiment, 86 undergraduates from
Northeastern were given five minutes to get to know a fellow student they
hadn’t met before. Half the pairs met face to face; the other half interacted
online by instant message.
Then the students were asked to
play a game in which all the players got four tokens and the chance to win
money. A token was worth $1 if a player kept it for himself or $2 when he gave
it to his partner. Players could win $4 each if both partners kept their
tokens, but if they worked together and traded all four tokens, then each
partner could win $8. But the biggest gain — $12 — came from cheating a partner
out of his tokens and not giving any in return. Over all, only about 1 in 5
people (22 percent) were completely trustworthy and cooperative, giving away
all their tokens so that each partner could win $8. Thirteen percent were
untrustworthy, keeping all or most of their tokens. The remaining 65 percent
were somewhat cooperative, giving away two or three tokens but also holding one
or two back for security. Both groups demonstrated the same level of
cooperation. Whether the students met face to face or online didn’t change
their decisions about how many tokens to give away or keep. But students who
met in person were far better at predicting the trustworthiness of the partner;
that suggested they were relying on visual cues.
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