Do poor children grow up to be more trustworthy than rich kids? [Video]

By Stephen Beech

People who grew up in poverty are more likely to be trusted, according to new research.

Modest childhoods inspire more trust than privileged upbringings, suggest the findings.

Lead researcher Kristin Laurin, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said: “Trust is essential for healthy relationships.

“Without it, romantic partnerships can fail, workplaces can suffer and social divisions can grow.

“But what makes people trust someone in the first place?”

To find out, researchers ran a series of experiments involving more than 1,900 participants.

The team explored whether someone’s social class – either while growing up or currently – affects how trustworthy they appear to strangers.

In one experiment, participants were asked to play a trust game with what they thought were other real people, but were actually fictional profiles.

Each participant filled out a profile and received copies of profiles from their “group.”

Some fake profiles described people who grew up …