TY - JOUR
T1 - Trust development as an expectancy-learning process
T2 - Testing contingency effects
AU - Bosmans, Guy
AU - Waters, Theodore E.A.
AU - Finet, Chloe
AU - de Winter, Simon
AU - Hermans, Dirk
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by FWO grants G077415N and G075718N, awarded to GB. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Bosmans et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Trust in parental support and subsequent support seeking behavior, a hallmark of secure attachment, result from experiences with sensitive parents during distress. However, the underlying developmental mechanism remains unclear. We tested the hypothesis that trust is the result of an expectancy-learning process condtional upon contingency (the probability that caregiver support has a positive outcome). We developed a new paradigm in which a novel caregiver provides help to solve a problem. Contingency of the caregiver’s support was manipulated and participants’ trust in the caregiver and their help seeking behavior was measured in three independent samples. The hypothesis was supported suggesting that trust and support seeking result from an expectancy-learning process. These findings’ potential contribution to attachment theory is discussed.
AB - Trust in parental support and subsequent support seeking behavior, a hallmark of secure attachment, result from experiences with sensitive parents during distress. However, the underlying developmental mechanism remains unclear. We tested the hypothesis that trust is the result of an expectancy-learning process condtional upon contingency (the probability that caregiver support has a positive outcome). We developed a new paradigm in which a novel caregiver provides help to solve a problem. Contingency of the caregiver’s support was manipulated and participants’ trust in the caregiver and their help seeking behavior was measured in three independent samples. The hypothesis was supported suggesting that trust and support seeking result from an expectancy-learning process. These findings’ potential contribution to attachment theory is discussed.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0225934
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0225934
M3 - Article
C2 - 31825994
AN - SCOPUS:85076394654
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 14
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 12
M1 - e0225934
ER -