Studying a binary-choice trust game, we observe a negative relationship between people's expectations of others' trustworthiness and their own willingness to trust. This counterintuitive finding may be interpreted as a strategy to avoid negative emotions such as disappointment and regret, which...

Studying a binary-choice trust game, we find that trustors who consider trustees to be obligated to reciprocate are ceteris paribus less willing to trust. We argue that norm-orientated trustors anticipate that they will experience negative emotions should trustees violate the obligation to...