The genetic and psychological underpinnings of generalized social trust

IF 1.9 Q3 MANAGEMENT

Journal of Trust Research Pub Date : 2018-07-19 DOI:10.1080/21515581.2018.1497516

Aaron C. Weinschenk, Christopher T. Dawes

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引用次数: 10

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate the genetic and psychological underpinnings of generalized social trust, an orientation that refers to one's expectations about the trustworthiness of strangers. We make a number of contributions to the literature. First, using a new dataset containing information on a large sample of German twin pairs (N = 1980 pairs), we replicate previous studies on the heritability of social trust. Our analysis supports previous research showing modest heritability estimates for social trust. Second, we examine whether seven different psychological traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, self-efficacy, and cognitive ability) are related to social trust, a number of which we find are correlated with trust in theoretically expected ways. Lastly, we estimate the extent to which genetic factors account for the correlation between psychological traits and social trust. We find evidence that genetic factors account for a large amount of the correlation between social trust and two psychological traits-agreeableness and neuroticism. In addition, we find that the correlation between cognitive ability and social trust is primarily due to common environment. Our results provide important insights on the underpinnings of social trust.

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广义社会信任的遗传和心理基础

摘要在本文中，我们研究了广义社会信任的遗传和心理基础，广义社会信任是指一个人对陌生人可信度的期望。我们对文学做出了许多贡献。首先，使用一个包含德国双胞胎大样本信息的新数据集（N = 1980对），我们复制了以前关于社会信任遗传性的研究。我们的分析支持了先前的研究，该研究显示了社会信任的适度遗传性估计。其次，我们考察了七种不同的心理特征（开放性、尽责性、外向性、宜人性、神经质、自我效能感和认知能力）是否与社会信任有关，我们发现其中许多特征以理论预期的方式与信任相关。最后，我们估计了遗传因素在多大程度上解释了心理特征和社会信任之间的相关性。我们发现，遗传因素在很大程度上解释了社会信任与宜人性和神经质这两种心理特征之间的相关性。此外，我们发现认知能力与社会信任之间的相关性主要是由于共同的环境。我们的研究结果为社会信任的基础提供了重要的见解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Trust Research Multiple-

CiteScore

2.60

自引率

42.90%

发文量

期刊介绍： As an inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural journal dedicated to advancing a cross-level, context-rich, process-oriented, and practice-relevant journal, JTR provides a focal point for an open dialogue and debate between diverse researchers, thus enhancing the understanding of trust in general and trust-related management in particular, especially in its organizational and social context in the broadest sense. Through both theoretical development and empirical investigation, JTR seeks to open the "black-box" of trust in various contexts.