Trusting Strangers - Who Do We Trust and Why?

21 September 2020

When two strangers meet, how do they figure out whether they should trust each other?

Within 100 milliseconds of seeing someone for the first time, you could assess everything from whether you share a cultural or racial identity with a stranger to the width of their jaw. Before you even talk to them for the first time, you have already made a judgement about how trustworthy they are.

Sometimes you make this decision before you even see the person.

In an era when trust in organisations and strangers is falling, what can this teach us about how and why we trust?

Dr Nicole Nelson, from the UQ School of Psychology, joined Professor Dr Anne Bockler Raettig, from Leibniz University Hannover, and Dr Clare Sutherland, from the University of Aberdeen, on ABC Radio National's All In The Mind to discuss trust.

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