ABSTRACT
Motives matter when we are considering the trustworthiness of others. The old saying “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” is often used to discern who really benefits from a grand offer. An honest fool “with a heart of gold” might not be trusted with a fortune, but can be trusted not to secretly feather their own nest by deliberately hiding information. In social encounters, participants locally negotiate their speaker neutrality. An example of a codable action serving this purpose is the use of ‘footing shift’, whereby interactants may bring others’ concerns or voices to light, while avoiding any affiliation with the viewpoint that they report. A strong suborientation to stake and interest is bias. Negotiations concerning who is the benefactor of an action may therefore be seen as part of an orientation to trustworthiness. Participants have been shown to locally negotiate the “benefactive status” of an action, e.g. through proposals, offers and suggestions.
