Does short-term hunger increase trust and trustworthiness in a high trust society?

Elias Rantapuska, Riitta Irene Freese, Iiro Jääskeläinen, Kaisa Hytönen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

We build on the social heuristics hypothesis, the literature on the glucose model of self-control, and recent challenges on these hypotheses to investigate whether individuals exhibit a change in degree of trust and reciprocation after consumption of a meal. We induce short-term manipulation of hunger followed by the trust game and a decision on whether to leave personal belongings in an unlocked and unsupervised room. Our results are inconclusive. While, we report hungry individuals trusting and reciprocating more than those who have just consumed a meal in a high trust society, we fail to reject the null with small number of observations (N = 101) and experimental sessions (N = 8). In addition, we find no evidence of short-term hunger having an impact on charitable giving or decisions in public good game.
Original languageEnglish
Article number1944
JournalFrontiers in Psychology
Volume8
Number of pages13
ISSN1664-1078
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Nov 2017
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Fields of Science

  • 511 Economics
  • 515 Psychology
  • 416 Food Science
  • trust
  • reciprocity
  • trustworthiness
  • hunger
  • glucose
  • social heuristic hypothesis

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