Is trust a zero-sum game? What happens when institutional sources get it wrong

Abstract

Trust in mainstream institutions is declining while people are increasingly turning to alternative media and conspiracy theories. Previous research has suggested that these trends may be linked, but the dynamics of trust across multiple sources has received little investigation. Is trust a neutral process, where each source is judged independently, is it a zero-sum competition, where a loss for one side is a gain for the other, or does losing trust in one source in foster a more generalized sense of distrust? Across three experimental studies (N = 2,951) we examined how people react when a source makes a serious error, testing four potential models of trust dynamics. We found that regardless of whether the outlet is mainstream, counter-mainstream, or neutral, trust drops for the erring source but does not rise for its competitors. This was the case in the context of both food regulations and COVID-19 precautions. Such a pattern suggest that each source may be judged independently of others. However, in several cases, an error made by one source led to a loss of trust in all sources, suggesting that rather than choosing sides between competing sources, people are also judging the media landscape as a whole to discern if it is feasible to find trustworthy information. However, correlational data did also find that the more people saw a source as politicized, the less they trusted that source and the more they trusted its competitors.