The Behavioral Decision-making Of Highly Aggressive Individuals And The Regulation Effect Of Positive Mood In Trust Game

In our daily lives, trust reduces transaction costs and facilitates alliances. It is often considered the "glue" that holds our society together. It plays an important role in all types of social and organizational interactions. Researchers believe that trust is under the influence of individual characteristics, mood and the interaction effects between them. With aggressive behavior and violence are more serious, they have become an important public health problem. Therefore, it is advised we propose that researchers should pay attention to individual differences when it comes to aggressive behavior. Besides, the unique cognitive characteristics and traits of highly aggressive individuals are important to their trust decisions, so studying aggressiveness as an individual difference factor is necessary for trust research. In addition, the researchers generally agree that mood can affect individual’s trust decisions, but the relation of positive emotion and trust is still under dispute, which is characterized by the controversy of Mood-congruency models and Heuristic-reliance model. Therefore, studying the effect of positive mood on trust decision and the interactive effects of aggressiveness and positive mood are of great significance.This study used the method of combining the Aggression Questionnaire and behavioral experiments to explore differential trust decisions between different individuals that vary in their aggressiveness level. Study 1 analyzed the differences in trust decision-making between highly aggressive individuals and low aggressive individuals with trust game and the investment game; Study 2 added the positive mood to study 1 to explore the influence of positive emotion on the trust decisions of different individuals that vary in their aggressiveness. The results obtained are as follows:1.The trust rates of highly aggressive individuals are significantly lower than the trust rates of low aggressive individuals in the trust game; the mistrust reaction time of highly aggressive individuals is significantly shorter than the mistrust reaction time of low aggressive individuals, whereas the trust reaction time of low aggressive individuals is significantly shorter than the trust reaction time of highly aggressive individuals.2. Highly aggressive individuals sent significantly lower amount of money on average than low aggressive individuals in the investment game.3. The trust rates of highly aggressive individuals under the condition of positive mood are no significant difference from the trust rates under the condition of neutral mood. The trust rates of low aggressive individuals under the condition of positive mood are significantly higher than the trust rates under the condition of neutral mood.4.The average amount of investment of highly aggressive individuals under the condition of positive mood is no significant difference from the average amount of investment under the condition of neutral mood. The average amount of investment of low aggressive individuals under the condition of positive mood is significantly higher than the average amount of investment under the condition of neutral mood.To sum up, individuals with different level of aggressiveness differ significantly in their trust decisions. While the general propensity to trust and the trust level being lower in highly aggressive individuals, the influence of positive mood on trust decision is constrained by aggressiveness. Compared with neutral mood, positive mood significantly improves low aggressive individuals’ tendency to trust and their trust level toward others, however there is no significantly improvement for highly aggressive individuals’trust tendency and their trust level. Our results support the Heuristic-reliance model.