Relationships between credibility and confidence in the world with interpersonal trust on the Internet environment based on visual and textual information in groups with different types of trust

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between interpersonal trust factors (internal and external) and the role of these factors in an individual’s perception of others and their texts in the online environment. In the current study we tested the hypothesis that credibility and confidence in the world are associated with trust towards an unfamiliar person based on their appearance and written texts. The study involved 182 participants who assessed strangers based on photographs and texts using a survey titled "Qualities and Factors of Trust in a Stranger." The results indicated that internal factors, such as credibility and confidence in the world, were more strongly correlated with trust when only a photograph was presented, compared to when both a photograph and text were available. The findings suggest that the evaluation of a person's appearance is heavily influenced by the evaluator’s past experiences and personal characteristics, whereas assessments that include both appearance and additional information, such as text, are more closely related to knowledge acquired about the person being perceived.