I don’t think that it’s a good idea to use other people behavior as reference. The proper way to handle the situation is to do an utility calcualation.
How likely is it that something gets stolen?
I would guess that the average person has some instances where they trust too much and others where they trust too little.
People in general put little trust in strangers but much more trust if they “know” the person. In reality getting to “know” a person doesn’t change them. A lot of crimes aren’t done by strangers but by acquaintances.
Getting to “know” a person, and sharing a social network with them, raises the cost to them of harming me. They would lose my good will, which could easily be more valuable in the long run than the contents of the bag. I could also harm their reputation by telling others about their crime, possibly costing them other friendships. There is also a filtering process in which evidence that people are likely to treat me badly leads to me not bothering to get to know them better.
I don’t think that it’s a good idea to use other people behavior as reference. The proper way to handle the situation is to do an utility calcualation.
How likely is it that something gets stolen?
I would guess that the average person has some instances where they trust too much and others where they trust too little. People in general put little trust in strangers but much more trust if they “know” the person. In reality getting to “know” a person doesn’t change them. A lot of crimes aren’t done by strangers but by acquaintances.
Getting to “know” a person, and sharing a social network with them, raises the cost to them of harming me. They would lose my good will, which could easily be more valuable in the long run than the contents of the bag. I could also harm their reputation by telling others about their crime, possibly costing them other friendships. There is also a filtering process in which evidence that people are likely to treat me badly leads to me not bothering to get to know them better.