The impact of friend-or-foe cues and survival pressure on trust in the investment game

Prior research has shown that people place more trust in a counterpart referred to as a “partner” than as an “opponent” in a bargaining game. This is thought to be because the appellations “partner” or “opponent” serve as subtle cues activating a postulated friend-or-foe (FOF) mental module. However, no research has investigated the association between FOF cues and trust in an investment game from an evolutionary perspective. The present research demonstrates the effect of FOF cues on trust among Chinese samples in an actual investment game (Study 1) and in a hypothetical investment game (Study 2), and further demonstrates the moderating role of survival pressure on the association between FOF cues and trust-FOF cues influence trust in a scenario involving survival pressure but not in a scenario lacking survival pressure (Study 3). These findings are consistent with the existence of an adaptive FOF mental mechanism used by human beings to solve survival challenges.