What makes for trusting relationships in online communication?

Purpose – Trust is an ability that characterises human beings as social creatures. It is becoming a key variable in a society strongly influenced by online communication, and in the important field of PR as well. The present study aims to investigate the possibilities of creating trust in online communication when face‐to‐face interaction, which is usually considered to be a crucial element of communication, is missing. This is an empirical study of the factors that promote or hinder the expectation of trust and the willingness to trust. Design/methodology/approach – The research question is derived from attribution theory and postulates that the assigning of an interlocutor's similarity to or dissimilarity oneself influences the development of trust. Since online communication is a purely verbal exchange, various language styles were experimentally tested to determine whether they would create in the receiver a perception of similarity to or dissimilarity from the sender of the message, so that the receiver would then attribute trustworthiness to the sender. Findings – The study shows that similarity in language code preference creates the perception of personal similarity and influences the attribution of trustworthiness to the interlocutor. Research limitations/implications – The results are only relevant for the first stage in the process of building trust. Practical implications – The experimental results are useful in making an innovative contribution to the development of socio‐technical communication strategies in online communication and suggest further scientific research into the determining factors in online communication and their practical implementation Originality/value – The current study investigates a field that has been relatively unexamined until now. Its originality is in developing a hypothetical approach from attribution theory and in its experimental design.