We study trustors’ expectations in the binary-choice trust game and find that reference point dependency affects trustors’ willingness to trust. The more that people expect others to be trust-worthy, the warier they are of being disappointed and the less willing they are to trust. We extend previous research by considering social value orientation as a potential source of trustors’ expectations. As a reflection of the false consensus bias, we find that prosocial trustors expect others to be more trustworthy than proself trustors do. By linking our two main findings, we identify an indirect (negative) effect of social value orientation on trusting behavior which has not been considered in the literature so far. We conclude that reference-point-dependent behavior of trustors may decrease the overall volatility of trust and may reduce negative effects of exogenous shocks on trust.