Tag: trust
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First We Believe, Then We Evaluate
When presented with a piece of information for the first time, do we first understand the message before carefully evaluating its truthfulness and deciding whether to believe it, or do we instead immediately and automatically believe everything we read? In an article that traces the history of this question (Descartes argued that “understanding and believing are…
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The Optimal Level of Trust
How much we trust people influences much more than just our interpersonal relationships and can even cost us a considerable amount of financial harm. The study concluding this (pdf) suggests that too much or too little trust has a financial cost equivalent to that of not attending university and shows that if we trust too much we assume too…