Open people are more likely to trust their new team members under subliminal influence

Jie Cai; Xiaoning Sun; Jingyu Zhang; Xianghong Sun

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14948

Open people are more likely to trust their new team members under subliminal influence

Heliyon. 2023 Mar 25;9(4):e14948. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14948. eCollection 2023 Apr.

Authors

Jie Cai^{1

2

3}, Xiaoning Sun⁴, Jingyu Zhang^{1

2}, Xianghong Sun^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
² Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, China.
⁴ Shanghai Children's Medical Center, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

The activation of subliminal stimuli plays an indispensable role in trust research. This study aimed to investigate the effect of subliminal stimuli on team trust and the moderating role of openness on the relationship between subliminal stimuli and team trust. A total of 155 participants were recruited to complete five tasks. The results suggested a significant influence of subliminal stimuli on team trust and the significant moderating role of openness. This study revealed the mechanism of the effect of subliminal stimuli on team trust, which lays an empirical foundation for individualized team trust improvement intervention. The current study provided novel insights that subliminal priming technology offers a new way to improve team trust.

Keywords: Openness; Subliminal stimuli; Team trust; Trustworthiness perception.