Revisiting the trustworthiness–trust relationship: Exploring the differential predictors of cognition‐ and affect‐based trust

Summary We seek to develop a better understanding of interpersonal trust by bridging the gap between two heretofore distinct paradigms of trust. One paradigm views trust in terms of two dimensions: cognition‐ and affect‐based. The other paradigm views trust as being distinct from trustworthiness, which has four dimensions: ability, behavioral integrity, benevolence, and values congruence. Currently, theoretical consensus is lacking about the antecedents of cognition‐ and affect‐based trust in the first paradigm that incorporates insights from research on trustworthiness in the second paradigm. We show that this lack of consensus is problematic for internal knowledge development and external knowledge expansion. Thus, we join both paradigms by theorizing that ability and behavioral integrity are the most important predictors of cognition‐based trust, whereas benevolence and values congruence are the most important predictors of affect‐based trust. Across two samples, we found that our predictions were largely supported. Based on relative weights analysis, ability and behavioral integrity were more important than values congruence in predicting cognition‐based trust, and benevolence was more important than ability in predicting affect‐based trust. Furthermore, we found evidence that these relationships were largely robust to changes in the referent of analysis.