Stumbling over the Trust Tipping Point – The Effectiveness of Web Seals at Different Levels of Website Trustworthiness

Researchers and practitioners have long thought that web seals are effective means to improve a website’s trustworthiness. However, studies demonstrated that web seals sometimes fail to exhibit the desired effect. Drawing on literature on cognitive complexity and the trust tipping point, this study investigates whether a website’s default trustworthiness (i.e., the trustworthiness of a website without a web seal) may play a pivotal role in explaining the inconsistent findings. We conducted a randomized online experiment with 240 participants and found support for the assertion that below a certain level of trustworthiness (i.e., the trust tipping point), web seals show a significant effect on a website’s trustworthiness. Yet, if the website’s default trustworthiness is above the trust tipping point, web seals do not significantly increase a website’s trustworthiness. Consequently, our study provides an unprecedented perspective on the effects of web seals on a website’s trustworthiness by considering a website’s default trustworthiness.