Healthy Suspicion: The Value of Low Swift Trust for Information Processing and Performance of Temporary Teams

This study investigates the team processes that transmit the effect of trust on team performance. Building on the motivated information processing in groups model, we propose that low swift trust increases team members' motivation to process information elaborately, which in turn benefits performance in nonroutine situations. Using a mixed repeated measure design with 40 teams performing routine and nonroutine decision making tasks under manipulated conditions of low and high swift trust, we find that teams receiving the low swift trust manipulation, processed information more elaborately than teams in the high swift trust condition. This in turn, increased performance in nonroutine tasks but did not influence performance when performing routine tasks. This study extends past individual level research on trust and strategic thinking to the team level and identifies information processing as an important mediator in the trust-team performance relation.