不同主题和风险下的人际信任:“信任圈”的中、加比较

在人际关系网络中,那些被信任者构成了个体的"信任圈",信任圈的规模可以代表个体表现出的信任水平。本研究考察了在不同交流主题(借钱、正面和负面信息交流)和风险等级下,中国人和加拿大人信任圈规模的差异。对202名中国和加拿大成年被试的调查表明,交流主题对信任水平有影响,在借钱和交流正面信息时信任圈明显大于交流负面信息时;风险等级越高,信任圈越小,在借钱时人们对风险等级尤其敏感;无论分享正面还是负面信息时,中国人的信任圈都比加拿大人更小,而在借钱方面中国人比加拿大人的信任圈更大。可见,人际信任与主题、风险和文化因素及其交互作用有关,这些结果对于理解信任的文化差异和跨文化交往实践非常有意义。

Interpersonal Trust for Different Domains and Risk Levels:Comparing the Trust Circle of Chinese and Canadians

In everyday life,varied economic and information exchanges frequently occur between one and another,a primary condition of which is both parities trusting each other.In the study,a new construct named as "trust circle" was developed and the size of the circle was used as an index of one's interpersonal trust level.The purpose of the study was to explore how the size of one's trust circle is affected by the trust domain,risk level and culture in China and Canada.An questionnaire was administrated to 100 Chinese residents in China (mean age 32.92) and 102 Canadians (mean age 31.94) who participated in the study voluntarily.The results showed that:(1) the average trust circle size in different domains differs,specifically,the size of the trust circle in the economic situation is the largest,the size is the smallest in the negative information sharing context and it is in the middle in the positive personal/social information sharing context; (2) the trust circle size varies with risk level; as the economic risk increases the trust circle becomes smaller,as the degree of the shared positive information increases the trust circle becomes larger,and as the degree of the shared negative information increases the trust circle becomes smaller; (3) the trust circle sizes in different cultures are not the same,for example,trust circle size of Chinese participants is larger than Canadians' in the economic risk situation,and Canadians,trust circle sizes are larger than Chinese counterparts' in both positive and negative personal/social information sharing domains.Thus,it can be concluded that whether people trust others is affected by the related domain,the risk level,the culture and interactions of two or three factors.Aforementioned results are heuristic for clarifying culture differences of interpersonal trust and for promoting cross culture communication of people from China and Canada.