Joint attention modulates intergroup altruism via incidental learning of trust

Joint attention (i.e., looking where others look) can implicitly elicit positive social behavior: people trust more and are more altruistic toward individuals who are helpful in cueing relevant objects than toward unhelpful individuals. Does this effect extend to intergroup contexts? White and Black participants (Studies 1 and 3) and Male and Female participants (Study 2) completed a joint attention task in which outgroup faces would provide helpful cues to the response target, and ingroup faces would be unhelpful. Then, participants completed an economic ultimatum game in which they could make altruistic offers to the same faces and finally rated the faces’ trustworthiness. Studies 1 and 2 showed a reliable intergroup joint attention effect and a relationship between trustworthiness perception and altruism. Study 3 showed the independent contribution of gaze-induced trust learning and intergroup trustworthiness perception, and that the link between social learning and altruism is the most evident when intergroup salience is limited. Overall, these data indicate that gaze-mediated social learning increases intergroup altruism by affecting perception of trustworthiness.