Interpersonal trust is a mental construct with implications for social functioning and economic behavior as studied by trust games, for example.

Although neoclassical economic theory suggests that trust in strangers is irrational, trust and trustworthiness can be widely observed across societies. In fact, reciprocity exists as a basic element of human relationships and behavior, and this is accounted for in the trust extended to an anonymous counterpart (Berg et al., 1995). The nature of trusting behavior is a multi-faceted part of psychology, investigated in terms of underlying dispositions, intergroup processes, and cognitive expectations (Evans & Krueger, 2009). Behavioral and biological evidence indicates that trusting is not simply a special case of risk-taking, but based rather on important forms of social preferences, such as betrayal aversion (Fehr, 2010).