Effect of indirect information on system trust and control allocation

In contrast with most other experimental system trust research, this paper examines indirect information as a basis for trust. In experiment 1, the overall valence of an evaluation concerning a route planner was pitted against a consensus cue, i.e. a favourable opinion about the system endorsed by a minority versus a majority. A positive evaluation caused an increase of system trust, whereas a negative evaluation led to a decrease. Control allocation, i.e. choosing manual or automatic mode, however, remained unaffected. Furthermore, no effect was found of consensus; one explanation holds that, despite the absence of outcome feedback, displaying of routes on-screen provided interfering trust-relevant information. Focusing solely on the consensus effect in the absence of route display, experiment 2 revealed consensus to affect both trust and control allocation. These experiments show that trust-relevant information can be processed heuristically and systematically. Possibly, trust can also be based on direct information despite absence of feedback whether generated solutions are good or bad.