Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32214377›Full record

ArticlePloS one2020

The Trust Game for Couples (TGC): A new standardized paradigm to assess trust in romantic relationships.

Tobias Kleinert, Bastian Schiller, Urs Fischbacher, Laura-Anne Grigutsch, Nicolas Koranyi, Klaus Rothermund, Markus Heinrichs

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Trust in close relationships revisited.Journal of social and personal relationships · 2025
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Tobias KleinertLaboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.
Bastian SchillerLaboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-1063-1434
Urs FischbacherDepartment of Economics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.
Laura-Anne GrigutschDepartment of Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
Nicolas KoranyiDepartment of Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
Klaus RothermundDepartment of Psychology, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
Markus HeinrichsLaboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Trust between couples is a prerequisite for stable and satisfactory romantic relationships. However, there has been no valid research tool to assess partner-specific trust behavior including costly investments in the trustworthiness of the romantic partner. We here present a comprehensive validation of the newly developed Trust Game for Couples (TGC) by means of various self-report and implicit relationship-related measures. The TGC operationalizes trust by measuring an individual's willingness to invest his or her own financial resources in pro-relationship attitudes of their romantic partner (collected by dichotomous responses to relationship-relevant items, e.g., answering yes to "I am absolutely sure that I love my partner"). Thirty-five healthy couples between 20 and 34 years completed the TGC in an interactive (both partners present), but anonymous setting (no information on the partner's responses revealed). Trust, as measured by the TGC, correlates positively with self-reported trust, satisfaction, and felt closeness in the relationship, but not with general interpersonal trust, confirming both its convergent and discriminant validity. In addition to explicit criteria for construct validity, implicit measures of partner valence and confidence explained variance in the TGC, demonstrating that it constitutes an economical measure of implicit and explicit ingredients of trust between couples. In sum, the TGC provides a novel, specific behavioral tool for a sensitive assessment of trust in dyadic relationships with potential for numerous research fields.

Indexed as

TrustAdultFemaleHumansInvestmentsMaleSelf ReportSexual PartnersYoung Adult

Identifiers

PMID32214377
PMCPMC7098626

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.