Interpersonal trust impacts societal and individual outcomes, affecting economic growth, democracy, and well-being. Trust levels vary both within and across countries, raising the question of what factors influence interpersonal trust. Existing research indicates that an individual’s socioeconomic status influences their level of trust, with wealthier individuals tending to be more trusting. This article examines a further effect of wealth on interpersonal trust, namely whether people perceive wealthier individuals as more trustworthy. Using a novel method for uncovering stereotypes while avoiding social desirability bias, we investigate whether wealth cues are associated with the perceived trustworthiness of targets. Our study, conducted with diverse participants across different cultures (Brazil, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, France, Nigeria, Philippines, and the United Kingdom), consistently demonstrates that wealthier targets are seen as more trustworthy. This culturally widespread negative stereotyping of poorer individuals may contribute to observed patterns of interpersonal trust.
AarøeL.PetersenM. B. (2014). Crowding out culture: Scandinavians and Americans Agree on social welfare in the face of deservingness cues. The Journal of Politics, 76(3), 684–697. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002238161400019X
2.
AlesinaA.La FerraraE. (2000). The determinants of trust (Working Paper 7621). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w7621
AlmondG. A.VerbaS. (1963). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. Princeton University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183pnr2
6.
BeckerJ. C.KrausM. W.Rheinschmidt-SameM. (2017). Cultural expressions of social class and their implications for group-related beliefs and behaviors. Journal of Social Issues, 73(1), 158–174. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12209
7.
BirkásB.DzhelyovaM.LábadiB.BereczkeiT.PerrettD. I. (2014). Cross-cultural perception of trustworthiness: The effect of ethnicity features on evaluation of faces’ observed trustworthiness across four samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 69, 56–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.05.012
BjornsdottirR. T.RuleN. O. (2017). The visibility of social class from facial cues. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(4), 530–546. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000091
10.
BjornsdottirR. T.RuleN. O. (2020). Negative emotion and perceived social class. Emotion, 20(6), 1031–1041. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000613
11.
BoasT. C.ChristensonD. P.GlickD. M. (2020). Recruiting large online samples in the United States and India: Facebook, Mechanical Turk, and Qualtrics. Political Science Research and Methods, 8(2), 232–250. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2018.28
ChmielewskiM.KuckerS. C. (2020). An MTurk crisis? Shifts in data quality and the impact on study results. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(4), 464–473. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619875149
14.
CushmanF. (2008). Crime and punishment: Distinguishing the roles of causal and intentional analyses in moral judgment. Cognition, 108(2), 353–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.03.006
DavisJ. A. (1956). Status symbols and the measurement of status perception. Sociometry, 19(3), 154–165. https://doi.org/10.2307/2785629
17.
DuranteF.TablanteC. B.FiskeS. T. (2017). Poor but warm, rich but cold (and competent): Social classes in the stereotype content model. Journal of Social Issues, 73(1), 138–157. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12208
ElbækC. T.MitkidisP.AarøeL.OtterbringT. (2023). Subjective socioeconomic status and income inequality are associated with self-reported morality across 67 countries. Nature Communications, 14(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41007-0
FitouchiL.AndréJ.-B.BaumardN.NettleD. (2024). Harmless bodily pleasures are moralized because they are perceived as reducing self-control and cooperativeness. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fzv43
22.
FukuyamaF. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. Free Press.
23.
GillathO.BahnsA. J.GeF.CrandallC. S. (2012). Shoes as a source of first impressions. Journal of Research in Personality, 46(4), 423–430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2012.04.003
24.
GlanvilleJ. L.AnderssonM. A.PaxtonP. (2013). Do social connections create trust? An examination using new longitudinal data. Social Forces, 92(2), 545–562. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sot079
25.
GlanvilleJ. L.PaxtonP. (2007). How do we learn to trust? A confirmatory tetrad analysis of the sources of generalized trust. Social Psychology Quarterly, 70(3), 230–242. https://doi.org/10.1177/019027250707000303
26.
GuinoteA.CotziaI.SandhuS.SiwaP. (2015). Social status modulates prosocial behavior and egalitarianism in preschool children and adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(3), 731–736. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1414550112
27.
GuisoL.SapienzaP.ZingalesL. (2006). Does culture affect economic outcomes?Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(2), 23–48. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.20.2.23
28.
HaerpferC.InglehartR.MorenoA.WelzelC.KizilovaK.Diez-MedranoJ.LagosM.NorrisP.PonarinE.PuranenB. (2020). World values survey: Round seven—country- pooled datafile. JD Systems Institute & WVSA Secretariat, 10(14281/18241), 1. https://doi.org/10.14281/18241.1
29.
HelliwellJ. F.WangS. (2010). Trust and well-being (NBER Working Paper,15911). National Bureau of Economic Research.
30.
HorwitzS. R.DovidioJ. F. (2017). The rich—love them or hate them? Divergent implicit and explicit attitudes toward the wealthy. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 20(1), 3–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430215596075
JussimL.HoneycuttN. (2021). The accuracy of stereotypes: Data and implications. Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology.
33.
KoS. J.SadlerM. S.GalinskyA. D. (2015). The sound of power: Conveying and detecting hierarchical rank through voice. Psychological Science, 26(1), 3–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614553009
34.
KorndörferM.EgloffB.SchmukleS. C. (2015). A large scale test of the effect of social class on prosocial behavior. PLOS ONE, 10(7), Article e0133193. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133193
KrausM. W.MendesW. B. (2014). Sartorial symbols of social class elicit class-consistent behavioral and physiological responses: A dyadic approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(6), 2330–2340. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000023
37.
KrausM. W.PiffP. K.Mendoza-DentonR.RheinschmidtM. L.KeltnerD. (2012). Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: How the rich are different from the poor. Psychological Review, 119(3), 546–572. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028756
38.
LindströmM. (2005). Social capital, the miniaturization of community and high alcohol position: A population-based study. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 40(6), 556–562. https://doi.org/10.1093/alcalc/agh190
39.
LochnerK. A.KawachiI.BrennanR. T.BukaS. L. (2003). Social capital and neighborhood mortality rates in Chicago. Social Science & Medicine, 56(8), 1797–1805. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0277-9536(02)00177-6
MurtinF.FleischerL.SiegerinkV.AassveA.AlganY.BoariniR.GonzálezS.LontiZ.GrimaldaG.VallveR. H.KimS.LeeD.PuttermanL.SmithC. (2018). Trust and its determinants: Evidence from the Trustlab experiment. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. https://doi.org/10.1787/869ef2ec-en
42.
NeubergS. L.SngO. (2013). A life history theory of social perception: Stereotyping at the intersections of age, sex, ecology (and race). Social Cognition, 31(6), 696–711. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2013.31.6.696
43.
NunnN.WantchekonL. (2011). The slave trade and the origins of mistrust in Africa. American Economic Review, 101(7), 3221–3252. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.101.7.3221
PehlivanogluD.LinT.LighthallN. R.HeemskerkA.HarberA.WilsonR. C.TurnerG. R.SprengR. N.EbnerN. C. (2023). Facial trustworthiness perception across the adult life span. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 78(3), 434–444. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbac166
47.
PepperG. V.NettleD. (2017). The behavioural constellation of deprivation: Causes and consequences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40, Article e314. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X1600234X
48.
PetersenM. B.AarøeL. (2015). Birth weight and social trust in adulthood: Evidence for early calibration of social cognition. Psychological Science, 26(11), 1681–1692.
49.
PoulinM. J.HaaseC. M. (2015). Growing to trust: Evidence that trust increases and sustains well-being across the life span. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(6), 614–621. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550615574301
50.
PutnamR. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon and Schuster.
51.
PutnamR. D.LeonardiR.NanettiR. Y. (1994). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton University Press.
52.
RothsteinB.UslanerE. M. (2005). All for all: Equality, corruption, and social trust. World Politics, 58(1), 41–72.
SchmukleS. C.KorndörferM.EgloffB. (2019). No evidence that economic inequality moderates the effect of income on generosity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(20), 9790–9795. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807942116
55.
SngO.WilliamsK. E. G.NeubergS. L. (2017). Evolutionary approaches to stereotyping and prejudice. In SibleyC. G.BarlowF. K. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of the psychology of prejudice (pp. 21–46). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316161579.002
56.
StolleD.SorokaS.JohnstonR. (2008). When does diversity erode trust? Neighborhood diversity, interpersonal trust and the mediating effect of social interactions. Political Studies, 56(1), 57–75. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00717.x
57.
TaoS.HaL.YuanC. (2016). The complementary stereotypes about the rich and the poor: A study in China. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 04(11), Article 11. https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2016.411009
58.
UslanerE. M. (2004). Trust and social bonds: Faith in others and policy outcomes reconsidered. Political Research Quarterly, 57(3), 501–507. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290405700314
59.
VanagsP.CutlerJ.KosseF.LockwoodP. (2024). Greater wealth is associated with higher prosocial preferences and behaviours across 76 countries. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zc5a3
60.
VanagsP.CutlerJ.LockwoodP.KosseF. (2023). Greater wealth is associated with higher prosocial preferences and behaviours across 76 countries. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/zc5a3
61.
WilliamsK. E. G.SngO.NeubergS. L. (2016). Ecology-driven stereotypes override race stereotypes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(2), 310–315. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1519401113
WuS. J.BaiX.FiskeS. T. (2018). Admired rich or resented rich? How two cultures vary in envy. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(7), 1114–1143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022118774943
64.
XuJ.AmyJ. C. C.GlickP.FiskeS. T. (2018). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: Competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. In Social cognition, (pp. 162–214). Routledge.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
