We're not saying this is a foolproof plan
Some people are naturally trusting and will share things at the drop of a hat, others are more reserved and it takes a long time for them to open up to someone.
But one thing is for sure, everyone is different. But we bet there's more than a few people out there who regret trusting a specific person at some point in their lives.
In a recent
paper, published in the September issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, it reports the results of a series of experiments which came to the conclusion that "guilt-proneness" is one of the strongest indicators of trustworthiness in a person.
The authors of the present paper speculated that guilt-prone individuals have a strong sense of responsibility and are, therefore, very trustworthy individuals.
To investigate this hypothesis, they conducted a series of experiments, using economic trust games and survey questions.
The experiments showed that guilt-prone individuals had more trustworthy and were more likely to act in a trustworthy manner during the trust games according to
Psychology Today.
So basically, according to the study, if you believe someone will feel guilty for sharing your secrets or letting you down, then that individual seems more trustworthy.
