Repeated Exchange Network Structures Affect Future Trust Toward Unmet Ingroup and Outgroup Others

This paper pairs insights from social exchange theory with scholarship on ingroup preferences. We ask: how do the structure and diversity of the exchange network in which an actor is embedded at time 1 impact subsequent trust toward an unmet individual at time 2? The goal is to understand whether and how the structures in which people are embedded have lasting, downstream effects on behavior, even toward those whom they might be inclined to distrust.

We randomly assign participants to repeated exchange tasks with different structures (productive, reciprocal, or generalized) with alters who either share or do not share a salient social identity. After a period of interaction in their exchange structure, participants decide whether, and how much, to trust a new alter who either shares or does not share their social identity in a one-shot trust decision.

Participants embedded in productive exchange networks are more likely than those in generalized or reciprocal exchange networks to trust an unmet interaction partner. Moreover, while trust is higher when the trustee is an ingroup member, this relationship is moderated by the form of exchange. Trust is not lower toward outgroup trustees when the truster was previously embedded in reciprocal exchange.

Our findings collectively suggest that prior exchange structures can affect the extent to which people trust unmet others from different groups. They also imply that extended exposure to, and prosocial interactions with, outgroup others may not be a core prerequisite of intergroup trust.