LONELINESS AND INTERPERSONAL-TRUST

Three studies were undertaken to investigate the relation between loneliness and interpersonal trust. Study 1 revealed that college students' loneliness was negatively correlated with trust beliefs on Rotter's Interpersonal Trust scale. Also, students who scored low on loneliness displayed an increase in trusting behavior across reciprocated trials in a Prisoner's Dilemma game whereas students scoring high in loneliness did not display a similar increase in trusting behavior. Study 2 revealed that students' loneliness was negatively correlated with their: (a) emotional trust and reliability trust in close peers; (b) belief that they were trusted, in terms of disclosure receptivity and social responsibility, by their close peers; and (c) ratings of the trusting and quality of relationships with close peers. Study 3 revealed similar relations between loneliness and trust in close peers but indicated that students' loneliness was not negatively associated with being trusted by close peers as implied by Study 2. The findings indicated that individuals' loneliness was negatively associated with their interpersonal trust across the different bases of trust, different domains of trust, and the familiarity dimension of trust. Also, the findings were attributed to lonely individuals' cognitive schema that they were relatively not trusted by close peers.