Perpetuating disadvantage and distrust: When leaders avoid victims due to concerns about distrust

Abstract: When people are mistreated, how do leaders respond? Ideally, leaders would engage with victims to make amends. However, we identify circumstances in which leaders avoid victims, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage and distrust. Leaders expect victims to be distrustful, which decreases their willingness to work with victims. These dynamics create double disadvantage: victims initially mistreated by one are then neglected by others. This neglect can increase victims’ distrust of leaders and their institutions, perpetuating the cycle. In Studies 1 and 2, we test our core hypotheses with important leaders: public health officials and local government officials. In Studies 3–5, we use tightly-controlled experimental paradigms that employ incentive-compatible economic games, demonstrating these effects with decisions in real time and documenting the full cycle of mistreatment, avoidance, and distrust. The current work provides theoretical insights into victimhood, disadvantage, and trust, while illuminating micro-level processes underlying pressing societal issues, institutional distrust, and inequality.

Keywords: trust, past mistreatment, inequality, avoidance, disadvantage