Knowing If You Are Trusted: Does Meta-Accuracy Promote Trust Development?

In this study, we examine how accurately assessing how much one is trusted by others (i.e., meta-accuracy) affects trust development. We disentangle meta-accuracy, overestimation, and underestimation and investigate to what extent accurate, overly positive, or overly negative perceptions of trust contribute to trust development. Using longitudinal data of teams and two distinct analytical approaches to model accuracy, we find that meta-accuracy contributes to increases in downstream trust. We discuss the findings implications for trust development and detail some important avenues for future work.