one could start by becoming familiar with existing literature on these questions — on the biological, intellectual, and sociocultural evolution/development of trustworthiness, and on the (developmental) psychology of trustworthiness
I’ve been reading some of the behavioural economics of trust games. One interesting article here is “Bare promises: An experiment” (Charness and Dufwenberg, May 2010) which finds that humans aren’t more likely to be nice after making a “bare promise” to be nice (where “bare promise” is like you tick a box saying you’ll be nice), but only if they make a promise to the truster in open free-form communication.
Other findings from the literature:
video communication is better than text
knowing more facts about the truster is better
building rapport / becoming friends with the truster is better
I’ve been reading some of the behavioural economics of trust games. One interesting article here is “Bare promises: An experiment” (Charness and Dufwenberg, May 2010) which finds that humans aren’t more likely to be nice after making a “bare promise” to be nice (where “bare promise” is like you tick a box saying you’ll be nice), but only if they make a promise to the truster in open free-form communication.
Other findings from the literature:
video communication is better than text
knowing more facts about the truster is better
building rapport / becoming friends with the truster is better