Abstract
Trust has been shown to reduce conflict, enhance cooperation, and increase risk-taking in organisational settings. However, the role of trust in security contexts, particularly those pertaining to information elicitation, remains largely unexplored. Furthermore, due to the proliferation of online platforms for security-related interviews, accelerated by technological advances and global events such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the need to understand the role of trust in online information elicitation contexts is even more pronounced. The same can be said about rapport-building, which seems crucial for improving interview outcomes in face-to-face interviews. To date, little is known about how face-to-face information elicitation techniques translate to virtual environments. The current programme of doctoral research aimed to address these gaps by disentangling and examining the individual and combined effects of interviewer trustworthiness and rapport-building on online interview outcomes.Experiment 1 assessed the relevance of trustworthiness for risk-taking in online settings using a two-player gaming paradigm and a between-subject design. Results revealed that participants playing with the untrustworthy player were less willing to trust them and, in turn, took significantly fewer high-risk decisions during the beginning of the second game than participants playing with the trustworthy player. Building on these findings, experiments 2 and 3 examined the impact of trustworthiness and rapport-building on information sharing, including the disclosure of sensitive or otherwise ‘risky’ information, in online interviews.
Experiment 2 adopted a between-subject design in which the interviewer’s trustworthiness and rapport-building efforts were manipulated to evaluate their effects on information sharing during a simulated job interview conducted via a chat platform. The results revealed that trustworthiness indirectly affected total and sensitive information disclosure by fostering trust, while rapport-building did not affect information disclosure. For Experiment 3, a novel manipulation of trustworthiness was developed, and its effect, along with that of rapport- building, was tested during a simulated vetting interview conducted via phone in a between- subject design. In line with findings from Experiment 2, findings indicated that trustworthiness indirectly affected both total and sensitive information disclosure by facilitating trust in the interviewer. While rapport-building increased the total number of details elicited, it did not increase the amount of sensitive information disclosed by participants. Interestingly, exploratory analyses revealed that rapport-building increased participants’ willingness to trust the interviewer from before to after the interview. In Experiment 4, the relative effectiveness of three trustworthiness aspects (ability, integrity, and benevolence) in fostering trust were tested during simulated phone calls between mock handlers and informants. Using a within-subjects design, participants, acting as potential informants, listened to three different audio clips, each representing emphasis on a different aspect of trustworthiness by a handler, and then indicated their willingness to trust and cooperate with each handler. There were no significant differences in trust based on the aspect of trustworthiness demonstrated and findings from the thematic analysis highlighted substantial individual differences, suggesting there is no universal approach to fostering trust. Across Experiments 1, 3, and 4, participants’ propensity to trust significantly influenced their willingness to trust interviewers, with those naturally inclined to trust being more likely to lend their trust to the interviewer. In the discussion of the results, the theoretical and practical implications for security contexts are explored and avenues for future research in online information gathering suggested.
| Date of Award | 5 Feb 2025 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
|
| Supervisor | Lorraine Hope (Supervisor), Feni Kontogianni (Supervisor) & Stacey Conchie (Supervisor) |