New research from the University of British Columbia reveals that people tend to trust individuals who grew up with less money more than those from wealthier backgrounds. This finding highlights the strong association between humble beginnings and perceived trustworthiness.
People are more likely to trust individuals who had modest upbringings over those from wealthier backgrounds, according to new research led by the University of British Columbia. The study sheds light on the critical role of socioeconomic background in shaping perceptions of trustworthiness.
“Trust is essential for healthy relationships. Without it, romantic partnerships can fail, workplaces can suffer and social divisions can grow,” Kristin Laurin, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia who led the research, said in a news release. “But what makes people trust someone in the first place?”
To uncover the layers of trust, Laurin and her team conducted a series of experiments involving more than 1,900 participants. They examined whether someone’s social class, either during childhood or in adulthood, affects how trustworthy they appear to strangers.
In one experiment, the participants engaged in a trust game, believing they were interacting with real people based on fictional profiles. The profiles described individuals from various socioeconomic backgrounds, such as attending public school and working part-time or going to private school and vacationing in Europe. The participants started with 10 raffle tickets and could transfer any number to another “player,” knowing that the tickets would triple and could potentially be returned.
The research explored trust as both an action and an expectation. The number of tickets transferred indicated levels of behavioral trust, while the participants’ beliefs about ticket returns reflected their trust expectations.
Across different experiments, the researchers manipulated profiles to highlight current socioeconomic status and assessed how participants rated others’ morality. Remarkably, the participants consistently displayed more behavioral trust toward individuals from lower-income backgrounds, whether past or present. However, they believed that those who grew up in lower-income households were inherently more trustworthy.
“Our research shows that people draw a clear line between someone’s childhood and their current situation,” added Laurin. “They generally saw people who grew up in lower-class homes as more moral and trustworthy. While they sometimes acted as if they trusted people who are currently lower class, they didn’t always believe those people would honor that trust.”
These findings suggest strategic implications for personal presentation in social interactions.
“If you’ve always been wealthy, for example, you might want to downplay that history and focus on the now, whereas if you’ve always struggled financially, making it clear that you grew up with humble roots might be more to your advantage,” Laurin added.
Despite the compelling insights, Laurin emphasized that the study did not assess whether those from lower-income backgrounds are indeed more trustworthy.
“We didn’t examine whether a person’s childhood or current class background actually influences their behavior,” she added. “That’s a question for future studies — especially to understand when trust is misplaced or when people miss chances to trust others fairly.”
The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, was co-authored by Laurin’s colleagues at the University of British Columbia, Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires and the University of Toronto.