著者

Arinori YOSANO Nahoko HAYASHI

出版者

Japanese Association For Mathematical Sociology

雑誌

理論と方法 (ISSN:09131442)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.20, no.1, pp.27-44, 2005 (Released:2007-07-06)

参考文献数

26

被引用文献数

2

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In this paper, we focused on trust as one of the factors of social capital, and examined its generating processes by comparing two main theoretical approaches of trust — the Emancipation Theory of Trust and the Reduction Approach. The former theory states that creation of general trust will be undermined when commitment relations with specific others are strong, whereas the latter approach states that strength of commitment relations with specific others provides the basis for nurturing general trust. First we examined the relationship between city size (supposedly an indicator of the strength of committed relations) and the level of general trust using data from two social surveys conducted in Japan. The result of the analysis showed no correlation between city size and the level of general trust. Then we performed structural equation modeling to explore the relationships between a wider variety of capitals, social resources and general trust. The results of the analyses show that general trust is nurtured when it is based on relations of trust with specific people. In other words, the result is diametrically opposed to the Emancipation Theory of Trust in that it implies that placing a high priority on existing relationships with people fosters accumulation of general trust and therefore of social capital.

著者

Nahoko HAYASHI Arinori YOSANO

出版者

Japanese Association For Mathematical Sociology

雑誌

理論と方法 (ISSN:09131442)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.20, no.1, pp.59-80, 2005 (Released:2007-07-06)

参考文献数

20

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In this paper, we discuss one of the major factors in social capital, the issue of trust, in terms of detection of trustworthiness of others. Yamagishi's Emancipation Theory of Trust concluded that high trusters, or people who have a high level of general trustfulness toward others, have social intelligence to accurately detect the general character of others. Kikuchi, Watanabe, and Yamagishi's Detection Experiment provided the empirical basis of such a conclusion. However, the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD) Game adopted in the Detection Experiment did not necessarily use appropriate alternatives of behaviors for participants as indicators of the general characters of people. Consequently, the results from the experiment are not appropriate for reviewing the ability to “detect a particular person's general character.” In order to overcome such problems and to measure the ability to detect a person's trustworthiness more appropriately, we conducted a laboratory experiment by adopting the game of enthronement. After a series of analyses, we could not confirm such a relationship between trustfulness and the ability to detect trustworthiness as discussed in a series of studies by Yamagishi. On the other hand, after reviewing the relationship between breadth of beliefs about others and the ability to detect trustworthiness of others based on Kelley and Stahelski's Triangle Hypothesis in a traditional PD game study, we could confirm that it is a person's assumptions or beliefs about internalization of social norms by others that determine the accuracy of his/her ability to detect trustworthiness of others.