Is big brother playing fair? Exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers

Trust has proven to be a vital social capital. It has been implicated in a myriad of socially beneficial initiatives. While trust vested in familiar others remain important, trust extended to strangers is crucial to the continued development of social capital. This is because such interaction, thoug...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: NEEQUAYE, David Amon
Format: Others
Language:en
Published: Digital Commons @ Lingnan University 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://commons.ln.edu.hk/psy_etd/3
https://commons.ln.edu.hk/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=psy_etd
id ndltd-ln.edu.hk-oai-commons.ln.edu.hk-psy_etd-1002
record_format oai_dc
spelling ndltd-ln.edu.hk-oai-commons.ln.edu.hk-psy_etd-10022019-11-02T15:16:35Z Is big brother playing fair? Exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers NEEQUAYE, David Amon Trust has proven to be a vital social capital. It has been implicated in a myriad of socially beneficial initiatives. While trust vested in familiar others remain important, trust extended to strangers is crucial to the continued development of social capital. This is because such interaction, though risky at times, forms a springboard to untapped opportunities. Using a multi-round trust game and self-report assessments the present study explored explanations for observed cultural differences in trust in strangers. Data was drawn from university students in Ghana and Hong Kong. Factor analysis showed that self-report trust in strangers was associated with trust in people of another religion and people of another nationality among Hong Kong Chinese, but was associated with trust in family members and people whom one knows personally among Ghanaians. While Hong Kong Chinese students reported higher level of trust in strangers, Ghanaian students showed higher level of trust in standard behavioural measure. Perceived nepotism in public institutions explained the observed cultural difference in self-report trust in strangers. Self-report trust in strangers and perceived nepotism in public institutions did not relate to behavioural trust in both samples. However, culture specific results with the behavioural measure indicated that dealing with a generous or thrifty individual impacted trust significantly. In both samples, participants dealing with a generous individual showed higher behavioural trust compared to those dealing with a thrifty individual. These results suggest that the influence of context on trust is twofold: distal, contextual factors, such as perceived nepotism in public institutions are influential to the cultural differences in self-report trust, whereas proximal, situational factors, such as generosity of a stranger, have more impact on actual trust behaviours. Altogether, this research showed that the contexts under which people function have substantial impact on trust. Specifically, individual’s experiences with the government institutions in a sociocultural context affect their tendency to trust unfamiliar others, but one’s immediate interaction with another person is more influential to their enactment of trust in a particular situation. Future research on trust should pay more attention to the effects of contexts, depending on how trust is operationalized. 2015-08-07T07:00:00Z text application/pdf https://commons.ln.edu.hk/psy_etd/3 https://commons.ln.edu.hk/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=psy_etd Theses & Dissertations en Digital Commons @ Lingnan University Psychology
collection NDLTD
language en
format Others
sources NDLTD
topic Psychology
spellingShingle Psychology
NEEQUAYE, David Amon
Is big brother playing fair? Exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers
description Trust has proven to be a vital social capital. It has been implicated in a myriad of socially beneficial initiatives. While trust vested in familiar others remain important, trust extended to strangers is crucial to the continued development of social capital. This is because such interaction, though risky at times, forms a springboard to untapped opportunities. Using a multi-round trust game and self-report assessments the present study explored explanations for observed cultural differences in trust in strangers. Data was drawn from university students in Ghana and Hong Kong. Factor analysis showed that self-report trust in strangers was associated with trust in people of another religion and people of another nationality among Hong Kong Chinese, but was associated with trust in family members and people whom one knows personally among Ghanaians. While Hong Kong Chinese students reported higher level of trust in strangers, Ghanaian students showed higher level of trust in standard behavioural measure. Perceived nepotism in public institutions explained the observed cultural difference in self-report trust in strangers. Self-report trust in strangers and perceived nepotism in public institutions did not relate to behavioural trust in both samples. However, culture specific results with the behavioural measure indicated that dealing with a generous or thrifty individual impacted trust significantly. In both samples, participants dealing with a generous individual showed higher behavioural trust compared to those dealing with a thrifty individual. These results suggest that the influence of context on trust is twofold: distal, contextual factors, such as perceived nepotism in public institutions are influential to the cultural differences in self-report trust, whereas proximal, situational factors, such as generosity of a stranger, have more impact on actual trust behaviours. Altogether, this research showed that the contexts under which people function have substantial impact on trust. Specifically, individual’s experiences with the government institutions in a sociocultural context affect their tendency to trust unfamiliar others, but one’s immediate interaction with another person is more influential to their enactment of trust in a particular situation. Future research on trust should pay more attention to the effects of contexts, depending on how trust is operationalized.
author NEEQUAYE, David Amon
author_facet NEEQUAYE, David Amon
author_sort NEEQUAYE, David Amon
title Is big brother playing fair? Exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers
title_short Is big brother playing fair? Exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers
title_full Is big brother playing fair? Exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers
title_fullStr Is big brother playing fair? Exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers
title_full_unstemmed Is big brother playing fair? Exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers
title_sort is big brother playing fair? exploring effects of perceived nepotism in public institutions on trust in strangers
publisher Digital Commons @ Lingnan University
publishDate 2015
url https://commons.ln.edu.hk/psy_etd/3
https://commons.ln.edu.hk/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=psy_etd
work_keys_str_mv AT neequayedavidamon isbigbrotherplayingfairexploringeffectsofperceivednepotisminpublicinstitutionsontrustinstrangers
_version_ 1719285845537587200