A recent paper titled "How does trust in multiple trustees influence disclosure of workplace conflict? Testing the Perceived Influence Model of Trust" has been named Best Paper (2023-2025) from the Journal of Trust Research. In addition to University of Nebraska Public Policy Center Senior Research Manager and Research Associate Professor Lisa PytlikZillig, authors of the paper include Ashley Votruba (Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln), Michelle Fleig-Palmer (School of Management and Economics, South Dakota State University), Jooho Lee (School of Administration, University of Nebraska Omaha), Mariska Kappmeier (Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand), and Abigail Herzfeld (Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln).
The paper focuses on an emerging area of trust research by considering trust in multiple trustees and predicting different ways that trust in multiple trustees might aggregate. Few studies have considered when and why a trustor might differentially weigh trust in each of multiple trustees, depending on the situation-context. The authors conducted an experimental vignette study to test predictions based on the Perceived Influence Model of Trust, which they proposed last year (PytlikZillig et al., 2024). In the case of two trustees, this model predicts three possible multi-trustee trust effects: (1) additive effects in which trust in each trustee incrementally adds to total trust; (2) compensatory effects in which trust in the most trusted trustee is weighed most heavily, so that trust in one trustee compensates for low trust in the other; and (3) compulsory effects in which trust in the least trusted trustee is weighed most heavily, such that both trustees must be trusted. The model further proposes that these effects depend on the influence the trustees share over trustor risk within the situation-context. The study focuses on workplace conflict because of its ubiquity and the importance of trust for conflict resolution. The results provide initial support for the Perceived Influence Model of Trust and provide a foundation for researchers seeking an enhanced understanding of multi-trustee trust in situations involving conflict.
PytlikZillig, L. M., Votruba, A. M., Fleig-Palmer, M. M., Lee, J., & Kappmeier, M. (2024). The perceived influence model of trust: toward a multi-trustee theory. Group & Organization Management, 49(2), 395-428.