Temporal discounting mediates the relationship between socio-economic status and social trust.
R Soc Open Sci
; 8(6): 202104, 2021 Jun 23.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34168889
ABSTRACT
Social trust and income are associated both within and across countries, such that higher income typically correlates with increased trust. While this correlation is well-documented, the psychological mechanisms sustaining this relationship remain poorly understood. One plausible candidate is people's temporal discounting on the one hand, trust has a strong time component-it exposes the individual to immediate costs in exchange of uncertain and delayed benefits; on the other hand, temporal discounting is robustly influenced by income. The goal of our studies was to test whether temporal discounting mediates the relationship between income and trust and whether experimentally manipulating perceived income has a downstream impact on temporal discounting and trust. To do so, participants who underestimated their relative income position received information about their true position in the income distribution in order to correct their misperception. Our results indicate that temporal discounting partially mediates the effect of income on social trust in a pre-registered online study on British participants (N = 855). However, receiving a positive information shock on one's income position had no impact on either temporal discounting or social trust. In a second pre-registered study, we replicated the finding that temporal discounting partially mediates the effect of income on social trust in a representative sample of the British population (N = 1130).
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Tipo de estudo:
Health_economic_evaluation
Idioma:
En
Revista:
R Soc Open Sci
Ano de publicação:
2021
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
França