The Role of Procedural Fairness in Trust and Trustful Behavior

Both fairness and trust are crucial to our willingness to cooperate with others. Whereas the importance of both fairness and trust for social interactions has been subject to empirical investigation, less is known about the interplay between the two constructs. In the present work, we investigated whether procedural fairness causally determines trust. Specifically, in two experiments we tested whether perceived procedural fairness increases trust and trustful behavior in social exchange situation. Importantly, to directly address the causal link between procedural fairness and trust without triggering other, fairness-unrelated considerations about the procedure, we manipulated perceived fairness by way of a new paradigm. This paradigm allows changing fairness perceptions while keeping the fairness procedure constant. Results demonstrate that changes in perceived fairness of a procedure lead to changes in the willingness to entrust money to another participant. This finding illustrates that trust judgments and trustful behavior can be influenced by procedural fairness judgments. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.