Loneliness And Trust: Evidence From A Large-Scale Trust Game Experiment

Trust behavior and being trusted are influenced by a multitude of individual and situational factors. Loneliness is a factor that has recently been hypothesized to be related to trust. Societies and governments are increasingly concerned with the rise of loneliness, and a negative impact on trust might add an additional social cost of loneliness. To evaluate the economic risk of loneliness, we present results from a large, incentivized trust experiment conducted with more than 27000 respondents. Our study allows us to investigate (i) the relationship between self-reported loneliness and behavior in an incentivized trust situation and (ii) the impact of knowing about the loneliness status of others on behavior. Contrary to what the literature hypothesized, we observe no negative correlation between self-reported loneliness and trust in the trust game: lonely individuals are more trusting than individuals who are not lonely. Higher trust by lonely individuals cannot be attributed to more optimistic beliefs of returns but seems to reflect a larger willingness of the lonely to take the social risk associated with trusting in the trust game. We further observe that being informed that an interaction partner is lonely leads to a beneficial treatment of the lonely. Individuals known to be lonely are significantly more likely to be trusted, and they benefit from their partners acting more trustworthy. Behavior that cannot be attributed to strategic concerns. We conclude that loneliness should not be considered as a deteriorator of social capital but as an emotional state that organizations should acknowledge to enable individuals to reconnect to others.