Trust And Trustworthiness Across Cultures: Implications For Societies And Workplaces [1 ed.] 3030567176, 9783030567170, 9783030567187

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Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies

Catherine T. Kwantes Ben C. H. Kuo Editors

Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures Implications for Societies and Workplaces

Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies Series Editors Sharon Glazer, Division of Applied Behavioral Sciences, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA Catherine T. Kwantes, Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/16418

Catherine T. Kwantes  •  Ben C. H. Kuo Editors

Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures Implications for Societies and Workplaces

Editors Catherine T. Kwantes Department of Psychology University of Windsor Windsor, ON, Canada

Ben C. H. Kuo Department of Psychology University of Windsor Windsor, ON, Canada

ISSN 2662-4672     ISSN 2662-4680 (electronic) Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies ISBN 978-3-030-56717-0    ISBN 978-3-030-56718-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This edited volume came about as the result of a large international project on trust and trustworthiness conducted between 2011 and 2018  – the International Trustworthiness Study (ITS; see Appendix for more information). For this multinational study, both quantitative and qualitative data regarding descriptions of trustworthiness in various social and organizational roles as well as individual endorsement of cultural values and beliefs were gathered from 12 countries. The ITS was developed as an initial empirical attempt to learn more about the cross-­ cultural, or etic, understanding of what determines trustworthiness across cultural contexts and social roles. As the project progressed, it became apparent that a more in-depth exploration of each of the cultural contexts, or emic understanding, was important – how trust and trustworthiness are conceptualized within each culture and what aspects of the cultural contexts may contribute to the understanding of how and why these descriptions emerged. Thus this book has a focus on cultural contexts that trust and trustworthiness take place in – with emphases on societal and organizational contexts. Each of the chapters in this volume was authored by an ITS collaborator to provide a deeper understanding of the context within which trust and trustworthiness conceptions are constructed within that particular culture. As such, this volume represents the first work of this kind in surveying trustworthiness from a cross-cultural and international perspective. This edited book features a total of eight chapters from contributors around the world. Distinctively, we asked our international contributors to review the construct of trustworthiness from both etic and emic perspectives from their specific national/regional/societal context. The book begins with a chapter by Kwantes and McMurphy reviewing etic approaches to understanding what constitutes trustworthiness within the contexts of societal culture and organizational culture. In Chap. 2, Porto and Pilati describe trust in Brazil by situating it within the country’s colonial history, as well as in its relationship to the indigenous (emic) concept of jeitinho in Brazil – a creative problem-solving strategy involving deception or trickery. In Chap. 3, Idemudia and Olawa link South African construction of trust and trustworthiness to Africa’s past history of colonialism and slavery and to the African notion of “Ubuntu” (“I am because we are”) – an emic, interdependent v

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definition of selfhood in Africa. In Chap. 4, Kartolo and Kuo survey the deep-seated cultural influences of Confucianism on trust and trustworthiness in contemporary Taiwan. The authors unpack trustworthiness from the Confucian principles of Xin and Guanxi. In Chap. 5, Talaei and Hashemi describe and assess national trust in Iran by reviewing the country’s cultural dimensions and its social and geopolitical histories, including wars, conflicts, and governance. In Chap. 6, Leupold assesses trust in contemporary USA from its cultural dimensions and surveys trust as a process. The chapter further highlights a general trend of decreasing trust being observed in the USA over the recent decades toward political system, government, and media. In Chap. 7, Burr and Samardzic illustrate the association between Canada’s multiculturalism and perspective of trust and trustworthiness. In particular, the chapter describes the impacts of Canada’s cultural dimensions and its diverse demographics (Anglo, Franco, Indigenous, and immigrant populations) have on the shaping of trust. Finally, in Chap. 8, Kanazawa and Watanabe address trust in Japan and how the theory of “rice culture” collectivism impacts how trust and trustworthiness are determined. They illuminate their analyses with findings from trust game research published in Japanese, drawing inferences related to trust and trustworthiness in the Japanese workplace. We believe in this edited volume the unique insights and syntheses being offered by these chapters and their corresponding authors provide valuable lessons for all who are interested in the research and the practice related to trust and trustworthiness across roles, contexts, and cultures. It is our hope that this book will serve as a basis for further research and innovation about trust and trustworthiness, as well as spark further conversations and inquiries about the topics internationally. Windsor, ON, Canada  Catherine T. Kwantes   Ben C. H. Kuo

Contents

1 Contextual Influences on Trust and Trustworthiness: An Etic Perspective����������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 Catherine T. Kwantes and Suzanne McMurphy 2 Trust in Brazil: The Interplay of Jeitinho and Trust Conception ������   17 Juliana B. Porto and Ronaldo Pilati 3 Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Trust and Trustworthiness from an African Perspective��������������������������������������������������������������������   33 Erhabor S. Idemudia and Babatola D. Olawa 4 Trust in the Taiwanese Context��������������������������������������������������������������   53 Arief Kartolo and Ben C. H. Kuo 5 Trust in Iran ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   71 Amirreza Talaei and Esmaeil Hashemi 6 Examining and Understanding the Current State of Trust in the United States����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   95 Christopher R. Leupold 7 Canadian Culture and Trust ������������������������������������������������������������������  119 Catherine Burr and Tanja Samardzic 8 Trust Building in the Globalizing Workplace of Japan������������������������  139 Shinichiro Watanabe and Yuichiro Kanazawa Afterword����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  163 Appendix ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  167 Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  171

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Chapter 1

Contextual Influences on Trust and Trustworthiness: An Etic Perspective Catherine T. Kwantes and Suzanne McMurphy

Abstract  In this chapter, we focus on trustworthiness as determined on the basis of role relationships – how these roles, nested in both societal and organizational cultures, help to operationalize trustworthiness. Although societal and organizational cultures both prescribe what is expected of an individual in a given social role, the two contexts are related, as organizational cultures are nested within societal cultures and are therefore constrained by societal culture. For example, power distance, a societal cultural variable that reflects the extent to which a society teaches its members that hierarchy is natural and expected, impacts how those at different levels of social hierarchy are expected to behave. In cultures where there is stronger hierarchy, those in lower power positions tend to disagree less with those in higher power positions, and a situation of dependency is more strongly fostered in highpower-distance cultures – both in society at large and in organizations. Keywords  Trust · Trustworthiness · Etic · Societal culture · Organizational culture

Trust is fundamental to all human interaction. Some theorists have even asserted that “the entire fabric of our day-to-day living, of our social order, rests on trust” (Rotter, 1971, p. 443). Others have described trust as “the single most important ingredient for the development and maintenance of happy, well-functioning relationships” (Simpson, 2007, p. 264). Numerous and varied benefits of trusting relationships include increased social capital (Kramer, 1999), decreased conflict (Zaheer, McEvily, & Perrone, 1998), and increased prosocial behaviors (Yakovleva, Reilly, & Werko, 2010). Humans have an inborn desire to trust and to have those whom one interacts with to be trustworthy. When trust is misplaced or abused, there can be high costs to the trustor; therefore, trusting means taking a risk and a

C. T. Kwantes · S. McMurphy () University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7_1

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­ illingness to be vulnerable (Kramer, 1999; Misztal, 2013). When trust is misw placed or abused, negative consequences can come to pass for that individual who was willing to take a risk, such as when one trusts another with private information. If that trust is misplaced or abused, the private information does not stay private. The determination of whom to trust, and for what, therefore plays an important role in decisions to trust. Determining the trustworthiness of another takes place in a social context, and this context matters as Bhattacharya, Devinney, and Pillutla (1998) state “it is impossible to think about individuals or organizations having innate levels of trust and trustworthiness independent of the environment” (p. 468). While there are multiple potential factors that can be drawn upon in making such a decision, all of these are contained within a context (Singh, 2012), and that context itself impacts how these decisions are made. Any discussion of a phenomenon within context requires an acknowledgment that there are both emic and etic aspects. Context provides the means to making sense of a situation and provides both surface- and deep-level information about the phenomenon, its likely origin, and the expected outcomes of the situation. Humans learn both explicitly and implicitly, through vicarious experiences of others in the same context, the meaning expressed in that context, and how various behaviors and circumstances are best explained. However, the fact that context matters also presupposes the idea that there are boundaries to that context. To the extent that a given phenomenon is part of the human condition, it implies that there are other contexts within which the same phenomenon may manifest itself. Examining a phenomenon across contexts, comparing and contrasting when the phenomenon occurs, the circumstance under which it occurs, and the meaning-making in multiple contexts constitute the emic aspect of the phenomenon. This chapter takes a closer look at the etic aspects of how trustworthiness is determined with a focus on societal culture and organizational culture contexts, acknowledging that one is nested in the other. Specifically, in this chapter, we intend to review and demonstrate that trust and trustworthiness are products of context. Context at several levels of analysis is important to trust and trustworthiness – cultures at both the societal level and the organizational level are contextual factors that impact how trust is developed and how trustworthiness is assessed (Kwantes, McMurphy, Kanazawa, & Kuo, 2019). Whitener, Maznevski, Hua, Saebo, and Ekelund (2000) note that societal culture is important in determining the expectations of trustworthiness as “simply put, culture is a shared agreement (usually implicit) about how to approach the world and each other” (p. 4). Expanding on this idea, Matsumoto (2007) states that “social roles are comprised of expectations and normative behaviors that emerge from the psychological meanings attributed to situational contexts; these meanings are cultural” (p.  1285), thus indicating that societal culture, social roles, and expected behaviors in those roles are inseparably connected. Thus, this chapter also focusses on trustworthiness as determined on the basis of role relationships – how these roles, nested in both societal and organizational cultures, help to define what trustworthiness is. While societal and organizational ­cultures prescribe what is expected of an individual in a given social role, the two

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contexts are related, as organizational cultures are nested within societal cultures (Dickson et al., 2014) and are therefore constrained by societal culture. For example, power distance, a societal cultural variable that reflects the extent to which a society teaches its members that hierarchy is natural and expected, impacts how those at different levels of social hierarchy are expected to behave. In cultures where there is stronger hierarchy, those in lower power situations tend to disagree less with those in higher power situations, and a situation of dependency is more strongly fostered in high-power-distance cultures – both in society at large and in organizations (Clugston et al., 2000).

Trust and Trustworthiness as Contextual Phenomena Trust and trustworthiness are interrelated but separate constructs. Trust reflects the willingness of a trustor to accept being vulnerable to another, whereas trustworthiness is a determination that another is worthy of that trust. In a meta-analysis intended to clarify the distinction between these two constructs, Colquitt, Scott, and LePine (2007) found empirical support that these constructs are discrete, as the components of trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, integrity) had significant but unique relationships with trust. They further suggest that trust may rely on trustworthiness, although something more than an individual’s trustworthiness is required to take the “leap of faith” to actually trusting that person (Lewis & Weigert, 1985; Möllering, 2001), thereby further emphasizing the fact that trust and trustworthiness, while related, are different words and reflect different constructs. Trust  There are a multitude of trust definitions, and a number of theorists have sought to synthesize a definition that spans various disciplines (cf Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998; Thielmann & Hilbig, 2015). These definitions all have some elements in common – a situation where there is some uncertainty, a motivation to reduce that uncertainly, an assessment of the extent to which another is likely to behave in a manner the potential trustor finds acceptable, and a willingness to assume the risk that the other may not live up to those expectations. Trusting is, therefore, essentially based on an assessment of risk (Deutsch, 1958) in a situation that is inherently interdependent. Thielmann and Hilbig (2015) expressly incorporate this risk assessment in their definition of trust: “a risky choice of making oneself dependent on the actions of another in a situation of uncertainty, based upon some expectation of whether the other will act in a benevolent fashion despite an opportunity to betray” (p. 3). Trustworthiness  The most commonly used definition of trustworthiness is that of Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995) who proposed that the bases for determining if an individual is trustworthy fundamentally rest on assessments of the extent to which that individual exhibits ability (competence in a given domain), benevolence (perceptions of positive intentions toward the potential trustor), and integrity

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(­adherence to a set of standards that is found acceptable by the potential trustor). Although this ability, benevolence, and integrity (ABI) framework has been used extensively in research, it is not all encompassing. In addition to other models with more bases for trustworthiness determinations, evidence exists that in some contexts and some situations, other idiosyncratic characteristics of a potential trustor may be important. For example, in an some early work, Rotter (1980) found that perceptions that a potential trustee was arrogant lowered the rating of that individual on trustworthiness. Thus, the impact of contextual factors on perceptions of trustworthiness is important and should be examined more closely. Trust is embedded in interdependent relationships – if there is no dependency, there is no need for trust. Alan Fiske (1992) suggests that there are four foundational forms of human relationships, (1) communal sharing, (2) authority ranking, (3) equality matching, and (4) market pricing, and suggests that how these relationships play out is determined by specific cultural factors. Sheppard and Sherman (1998) point out that these different forms of human relationships result in different levels and types of risks, and therefore, interpersonal trust is impacted by the type of relationship individuals have with each other. Thus, the intersection of role expectations and trust must necessarily be situated within context. As a contextual factor, societal culture exerts a strong impact. Societal culture sets boundaries of expectations on a variety of role relationships such as friendship (Haglund, Belknap, Garcia, Woda, & O’Hara, 2016; Wu, Zhang, Zhang, & Tian, 2015), family and coworkers (VonDras, Pouliot, Malcore, & Iwahashi, 2008), and leadership and supervisory roles (Brodbeck et al., 2000). The nature of the variety of these role relationships suggests that subcontexts of societal culture are also important; for example, a focus on the employment setting and organizational contexts as nested within societal culture becomes the critical context to take into account in order to understand organizational role expectations and how trustworthiness is need definitions for in-role and extra-role behaviors (Kwantes, 2019).

Role Relationships Nested in Context Individuals use various observable cues or other pieces of information, such as reputation, to develop inferences about the trustworthiness of another within a given situation (Thielmann & Hilbig, 2015). Despite Johns’ (2001) eloquent statement regarding the importance of paying attention to context – and Hardin’s (2002) caution that decisions to trust (and therefore the assessment that another is trustworthy) may actually only be understood in context  – contextual factors are infrequently taken into account in the trust literature. In social contexts, societal culture sets the norms of interactions and thereby indirectly impacts perceptions of whether or not a person is trustworthy. In organizations, employees play specific roles which have expected behaviors according to context. Both societal-level culture and organizational-­level culture form contexts in which organizational behavior takes

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place (Kwantes & Dickson, 2011) interacting in ways that set the stage for the person/situation interaction and having a strong impact on individual-level attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors  – including decisions regarding the trustworthiness of others. Trustworthiness, as an assessment of the extent to which one is willing to be vulnerable to another, focuses on the other party and implicitly suggests that some current or future interaction will occur between the trustor and the trustee. Thus, an assessment of trustworthiness implicitly incorporates a social exchange ideology (van’t Wout & Sanfey, 2008) and is, at least in part, based on expectations of how another individual will and should behave (Good, 1988). When an individual holds a specific social role, certain expectations go along with that role. Expectations of behavior from a parent differ from the expectations for a friend’s behavior. Theorists have suggested that these role relationships are fundamentally different based on the extent to which the relationships exhibit intimacy, the expressive aspects of the social relationship; visibility, the extent to which the role involves public and overt interactions; and formality, the degree of autonomy in determining interactions within that relationship (Marwell & Hage, 1970). These different aspects of relationships impact the expected behaviors such that a relationship based on low intimacy, for example, a short-term relationship or transactional relationship such as that of a client and taxi driver, would have very different behavioral expectations than that with high intimacy, such as a parent-child relationship. To violate these behavioral expectations would result in a negative evaluation of the other’s behavior and, in turn, their trustworthiness. In the organizational context, a given employee may or may not have personal knowledge of other employees, yet because each employee is working for the same organization, there is an interdependency in the work relationship. Consider, for example, perspectives of a newly hired employee. Given that there is no personal knowledge of another employee and no history of interacting with that employee, trust (or distrust) is based on the level of trust in the organization – trust that the hiring processes and systems of the organization have resulted in a good and capable individual being employed in the role for which s/he was hired. Over time, experiences with the results produced by the new employee as well as personal interactions with that employee provide more information upon which to base an assessment of trustworthiness. How the employee fulfills the task and role expectations of her/his position is a cue upon which to base trustworthiness assessments. Similarly, interpersonal interactions provide the opportunity to develop an assessment of the character of the individual and the interpersonal orientation that person holds toward others. Other aspects of the individual which might provide cues for the degree of their trustworthiness may also be assessed. Thus, in an organizational context, the impersonal and interpersonal trust assessments are not necessarily mutually exclusive (Dietz, 2011) and depend on organizational role expectations as well as personal characteristics. Luhmann (2017) argues that behaviors differentially impact assessments of trustworthiness depending on whether they are in-role or extra-role behaviors. Also, I

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think you need to clearly define in-role and extra-role behaviors (probably in the previous mention of the constructs, but if not, then here for sure). On the contrary, this is a good definition for extra-role behavior, are thought to reflect attributes of those individuals personally and are therefore used to assess the trustworthiness of that individual. We argue, however, that both in-role and there is indication though that extra-role behaviors is not clearly identified in some cultures are important to assessing trustworthiness. Chang, Yang, Yeh, and Hsu (2016) highlight that in their Chinese sample, the extent to which people fulfilled their societal roles was important for how others assessed the extent to which they could be trusted. Trustworthiness assessments reflect social decision-making processes (van’t Wout & Sanfey, 2008), and when individuals have knowledge about another’s social category, or role, this information can trigger social stereotypes which, in turn, may be associated with specific trustworthiness expectations (Thielmann & Hilbig, 2015). In the context of employees and organizations, individuals may work with those they know as well as those they do not know well at a personal level; thus. Particularly for those they do not know well, in-role performance and extra-role performance become internal metrics for a person’s trustworthiness. Both in-role and extra-role behavioral expectations are important. The extent to which an individual fulfills the expectations of a role provides information regarding whether or not an individual may be predictable – and by extension – trustworthy (Dietz & Den Hartog, 2006). However, beyond this, extrarole behaviors are used as a reflection of personal characteristics that signal the degree of trustworthiness of an individual. Role relationships provide behavioral expectations based on what is expected of an individual within a given role. Indeed, some research has suggested that the extent to which individuals rely on in-role versus extra-role behaviors may, itself, depend on societal culture. Zurcher (1968), for example, noted that some cultures highlight the person within the role and others highlight the role itself as the determiner of behavioral expectations. Lin, Kwantes, and Ellens’ (2013) findings support this idea. In a comparison of descriptors of a trustworthy colleague in Taiwan and the United States, they found that the descriptors for a trustworthy colleague in the American sample reflected the idea of keeping the organization’s best interests in mind while providing support to individual coworkers. In the Taiwanese sample, descriptors for a trustworthy colleague reflected a mutual give-and-take type of relationship between coworkers without an emphasis on the organization as a whole. Further evidence comes from Lin and Kwantes’ (2014) examination of the descriptors of trustworthiness across three organizational ranks (manager/employer, coworker, and employee) in Canada, the United States, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China. When describing trustworthy employees in general, participants tended to use more intrapersonal descriptors; however, coworkers and managers were described slightly more often using interpersonal descriptors, reflecting the more relational aspects of these two types of workplace interactions. Although Canada, the United States, and Taiwan showed similar trends with regard to their descriptions of trustworthy coworkers and managers, China was distinctly different. Chinese participants were more likely to use

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intrapersonal descriptors for all three organizational roles. This may reflect the ­complex in-group/out-group dynamics of Chinese culture, where one’s loyalty is extended to a tight-knit in-group (such as one’s kin or close friends) but out-group members are viewed as competitors for limited resources Earley, (1993). Consequently, in the competitive arena of a workplace, greater focus and value are placed on an individual’s performance rather than the maintenance of the more relational aspects of work.

Trust and Trustworthiness as a Function of Societal Culture Both trust and trustworthiness are highly dependent upon an individual’s construction of reality (Michalos, 1990), which in turn is rooted in societal culture as “no aspect of human life takes place outside human culture” (Oyserman, 2011, p. 166). Members of a specific societal culture are provided with information, examples, and cues from others in that culture that impact how individuals construct reality  – members learn values (Schwartz, 1999) and beliefs (Leung et al. 2002) from both their own experiences and that of others in a given cultural context. Culture teaches its members the appropriate way to behave and thus provides the range of behaviors available to its members. Further, social experiences – both firsthand and observed – provide information about desirable attitudes and behaviors by reinforcing those consistent with cultural values and beliefs and punishing those that are inconsistent. Cultural norms and values therefore exert a strong influence on how trust develops (Doney, Cannon, & Mullen, 1998) and what is considered trustworthy in different contexts. Societal Culture and Trust  Some research suggests that different national samples demonstrate the influence that that societal culture has on both decisions to trust and assessments of trustworthiness. For example, Canadian and Chinese descriptors of trust highlight the importance of social culture in determining how trust is conceptualized (Stonefish, Kwantes, Ng, Percy, & Szymczak, 2015). Canadians tend to describe trust in cognitive terms, less often in affective terms. In contrast, Chinese respondents rarely used cognitive terms. Findings suggest individualist contexts result in trust as a more calculated decision, whereas in collectivistic contexts, trust is based much more on emotions. In this case, the differences found were explained by drawing on the notion of “guanxi”: a socio-emotional bond inherent, and arguably unique, to Chinese culture (Chua, Morris, & Ingram, 2009). Guanxi uses a familial bonding structure, woven into the workplace through adherence to specific social scripts and etiquette, which is not typical in Western culture. Adherence to these social scripts allows individuals to predict the actions of others with a degree of real or perceived reliability. This reliance on socially ­constructed heuristics allows Chinese individuals in this study to skirt the consistent reappraisal of trust in coworkers, thus creating a predisposed attitude of trust once

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adherence to the social script is confirmed. This has the potential to reduce the need for a cognitive, or reason-based, perspective of trust, given that the mutual social script allows for much of this to be subsumed into a familial trust model with welldefined social roles and predicative qualities. Individualistic cultures, specifically North American, are arguably more dynamic, unpredictable, and adversarial regarding the nature of trust compared to the concept of guanxi. Lacking structured social scripts that allow for the prediction of individual behavior, consistent appraisal of individuals and contextual aspects of behavior necessitates a reliance on cognitive constructs to dictate individual trustworthiness and thus situates trust as individual choice. Societal culture’s impact on trust and trustworthiness is mirrored by its impact on caution and cynicism. If trust is a willingness to take a risk with the expectation of a positive result, caution and cynicism reflect fears and expectations that negative consequences will result from being vulnerable. Kwantes and Bond (2019) found that autonomy and perceptions of organizational justice differentially impact employees such that those with low social cynicism were much more likely to report less cynicism toward their own organization when perceptions of justice were high whereas those that were high in social cynicism were much less affected. Individuals “construct” situations largely based on their beliefs about how the world functions, as well as their personality characteristics (Bond, 2013). With respect to generalized caution, West Asia was significantly higher than other two regions. Differential relationships between individual variables and general trust emerged. For example, in a study comparing responses from Brazil and Canada, the individual-level variables of independent and interdependent self-construals, as well as social cynicism and social flexibility predicted generalized trust. Interdependent self-construal provided independent and positive contributions to the equation in both samples, but in Brazil, social cynicism played a significant and negative role in predicting generalized trust, whereas in Canada, interdependent self-construal added significant and negative predictive power to the equation (Kwantes & Porto, 2016). This finding suggests that although each of these individual-level variables is important to understanding generalized trust, trust in Brazil is strongly and negatively impacted by social cynicism, but this was not the case in Canada. Societal Culture and Trustworthiness  While evidence is accumulating that societal culture matters in trust (Ferrin & Gillespie, 2010; Devos, Spini, & Schwartz, 2002; Yuki, Maddux, Brewer, & Takemura, 2005), relatively little attention has been paid to determining what makes an individual to be considered trustworthy in various societal cultures. Still, evidence suggests that societal culture is an important influence. Sasaki (2019) asked individuals from seven countries and Taiwan what sources of information they would rely on to determine the trustworthiness of an individual before meeting that person. They found that those who indicated that “fame and interpersonal trust” are important criteria tended to come from high- or relatively high-trust nations (e.g., the United States, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, and Finland), whereas “high achieved status” was an important criterion for those who came from middle- or low-trust nations (e.g., Russia and

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Turkey). Thus, the sources of information for determining trustworthiness were context dependent. Tan and Chee (2005) explored the idea of trustworthiness in China, with an emphasis on Confucian influences on how these constructs are understood. They found that, with respect to the ABI model by Mayer et  al. (1995), ability was a strong influence in how trustworthiness decisions were made – but they also found a number of unique influences on the development of trust such as diligence, perseverance, filial piety, and harmony. In a comparative study, Wasti, Tan, and Erdil (2010) reported that the three bases for trustworthiness proposed by Mayer et al. were found in both Turkey and China; however, there were some cultural specifics in how they were enacted. For example, Wasti et al. note that while determinations of benevolence included some similarities, such as support and cooperation, differences were also found such that “Intimacy, Unselfish Behavior, Personalized Generosity, and Protection are specific to the Turkish sample, and Affability is specific to the Chinese sample” (p. 287).

 rust and Trustworthiness as a Function of Organizational T Culture Although the context of work is often viewed as merely an economic exchange, Levering (1992) states, stating that “work encompasses individual initiative and creativity. When people work, as opposed to merely laboring for money, they are offering part of what they consider their individual essence, part of what distinguishes them as human beings. Work cannot be so simply circumscribed as a simple timefor-money exchange” (p. 11). Employees may hold a certain degree of trust in their organization, but beyond that, interpersonal relationships at work are important. Within the context of work, behaviors and actions are circumscribed due to the specific nature of the responsibilities an employee holds, the nature of the work that is undertaken by the employee, and the role the employee holds in the organization. In all organizations, employees are expected to cooperate and coordinate their efforts in order to fulfill organizational missions, and supervisors are expected to fulfill a leadership role. Organizations develop and implement policies, procedures, and regulations that are intended to convey behavioral expectations of employees holding organizational roles and which, in turn, create interaction expectations (Shapiro, 1987). These expectations comprise an important determinant of organizational culture  – in fact, organizational culture has been described as shared ­normative beliefs and shared behavioral expectations (Cooke & Rousseau, 1988; Cooke & Szumal, 1993, 2000). Organizational culture reflects the way a particular organization enacts the expectations related to individuals who occupy specific organizational roles. For example, in some organizations, leaders are expected to be participative, whereas in others, they are expected to be more directive. Nevertheless, there are commonalities in all organizational cultures that create a

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context for trustworthiness, as by definition an organizational culture reflects a shared understanding. Thus, the context of work itself creates roles, as well as expectations related to the enactment of these roles, which is critical for the coordination of behavior and efforts necessary for fostering efficiencies (Bechky, 2006). Understanding these roles and knowing both what to expect from others and what is expected of oneself in an organizational role capacity can enhance productivity as it smooths interactions. Once these roles are in place, employees who occupy a particular organizational role are typically assessed based on the extent to which they fulfill that role. Jacobson, Charters, and Lieberman (1951) describe this as “the common observation that people in organizations tend to have relatively uniform expectations about the behavior of persons in various positions and that the behavior of these persons is interpreted in terms of such expectations” (p.  18). Some evidence exists that merely occupying a role in an organization may impact perceptions of trustworthiness such that those higher in the organizational hierarchy are perceived as being more trustworthy (Linke, Saribay, & Kleisner, 2016). Organizational Culture and Trust  The bases for determining trust can be very different within the organizational context compared to outside that context. Talaei, Kwantes, Eggett, Jamieson, and Najafi (2015) reported that Canadian respondents reported higher concerns with gaining and losing trust with colleagues than with family members. In the context of family, the importance of the “unconditionality” of trust was highlighted, with expectations that others will show trust-related behaviors in all conditions, regardless of the situation, and at all times. In the workplace, however, much greater concern was given to the conditionality of trust. Respondents indicated the importance of “gaining” trust, that is, emphasizing behaviors performed to gain and build trust, specifically behaviors that are intended to prove to others that one is trustworthy. Likewise, “losing” trust, that is, engaging in behaviors such as sabotage or backstabbing, was indicated as important, while expectations of trust as unconditional were low from colleagues rather than family members. Family members may be less concerned about being sabotaged or behaving in a way that causes them to lose all their trust in other family members, perhaps because of more firmly established trust in families. Additionally, there may be stronger social trust expectations as one might not trust family members, but may still be expected to engage in these relationships suggesting that such relationships are not expected to be tenuous based on trust breaches or reciprocity. However, given that trust is not already established in work relationships and is more unstable than it is in the family context, individuals might be more concerned about proving their trustworthiness to other members of the work group and may also be more concerned about losing it as a result of others’ negative behaviors. Organizational Culture and Trustworthiness  Interpersonal trust and trust in the organization itself are both important in the organizational context, with impersonal trust reflecting trust in an organization or institution and interpersonal trust ­reflecting trust in another human being. Similarly, both theorists and researchers anthropo-

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morphize organizations to an extent and treat them as “trustworthy” implying that it is possible to determine the trustworthiness of institutions as well as humans. The attributes of trustworthiness that are typically described at the institutional level are reputation, transparency, and giving of trust – often perceived as a unilateral investment in the relationship between the institution(s) and individuals. Barney and Hansen (1994) note that these attributes are analogous to those at an individual level of analysis as well. At the interpersonal level, trustworthiness attributions are assessed based on organizational role expectations, and those are, in turn, impacted by societal expectations. For example, leadership perception is context based (Lord, Brown, Harvey, & Hall, 2001) where context provides input on what is expected of a leader. Different societal cultures, as different contexts, create differing expectations of leader characteristics  – including what makes a leader considered trustworthy. This is illustrated by the findings of Lin and Kwantes (2013) where descriptors of trustworthy supervisors and employees differed between participants in Canada and in Taiwan. Canadians felt integrity (i.e., being honest) was important for both employees and supervisors but also benevolence (i.e., being supportive and caring) as an indicator of supervisor trustworthiness. Trustworthy employees were described as having a strong work ethic (i.e., reliable, does their best, and hardworking). Taiwanese participants felt trustworthy supervisors should be competent and possess leadership and motivational abilities. Conversely, employees who were reliable, hardworking, and punctual were considered to be trustworthy. Comparing between samples, participants from both countries described trustworthy employees in terms of their integrity and work ethic. More observable cultural differences were found in descriptions of supervisor trustworthiness; Canadians used supervisors’ straightforwardness and their ability to provide safe working environments as indicators of trustworthiness, while the Taiwanese valued supervisors’ abilities to lead, motivate, and teach subordinates. Similarly, in a comparison between Canadian and South African descriptors of trustworthiness of supervisors and employees, integrity and benevolence were viewed as equally important in both roles. In Canada, supervisors are expected to have higher levels of competence than their subordinates and be benevolent to those who work for them. In South Africa, a higher-power-distance culture, benevolence alone was emphasized as a descriptor of a trustworthy supervisor (Kwantes, Idemudia, & Olasupo, 2018).

Conclusion This overarching chapter provided an overarching view of trust and trustworthiness, comparing and contrasting findings in different cultural contexts and role relationship contexts. The rest of the chapters in this volume provide more of an emic view of how societal context shapes trust, trust behaviors, and perceptions of ­trustworthiness. These chapters will explore how individuals “construct” situations

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largely based on their beliefs about how the world functions as well as their personality characteristics (Bond, 2013). An understanding of how individuals determine whether or not another is worthy of trust, therefore, is based not only on personality but also on how a person construes the “reality” of what is being experienced. A more carefully nuanced understanding of personal factors, the layers of context, and their interactions is still needed. The intent of this book is to fill the gap of this nuanced understanding and provide additional content for exploring them.

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Lin, I., & Kwantes, C. T. (2013). A trustworthy supervisor vs. a trustworthy employee: A conceptual analysis of trustworthiness across cultures. Presented at the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conference, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Lin, I., & Kwantes, C.  T. (2014). A cross-cultural examination of trust in the workplace: Conceptualizations of trustworthiness in the US, Canada, Taiwan, and People’s Republic of China. Presented at the 22nd International Congress of the International Association for Cross-­Cultural Psychology, Reims, France. Lin, I., Kwantes, C. T., & Ellens, K. R. K. (2013). Cultural differences in group categorization of coworkers. Presented at the International Academy for Intercultural Relations Conference, Reno, NV, US. Linke, L., Saribay, S. A., & Kleisner, K. (2016). Perceived trustworthiness is associated with position in a corporate hierarchy. Personality and Individual Differences, 99, 22–27. Lord, R. G., Brown, D. J., Harvey, J. L., & Hall, R. J. (2001). Contextual constraints on prototype generation and their multilevel consequences for leadership perceptions. The Leadership Quarterly, 12, 311–338. Luhmann, N. (2017). Trust and Power. Medford, MA: Polity Press. Marwell, G., & Hage, J. (1970). The organization of role-relationships: A systematic description. American Sociological Review, 35(5), 884–900. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/2093299 Matsumoto, D. (2007). Culture, context, and behavior. Journal of Personality, 75(6), 1285–1320. Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. The Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709. Michalos, A. C. (1990). The impact of trust on business, international security and the quality of life. Journal of Business Ethics, 9, 619–638. Misztal, B. (2013). Trust in modern societies. Medford, MA: Polity Press. Möllering, G. (2001). The nature of trust: From Georg Simmel to a theory of expectation, interpretation and suspension. Sociology, 35(2), 403–420. Oyserman, D. (2011). Culture as situated cognition: Cultural mindsets, cultural fluency, and meaning making. European Review of Social Psychology, 22, 164–214. Rotter, J. B. (1971). Generalized expectancies for interpersonal trust. American Psychologist, 26, 443–452. Rotter, J. B. (1980). Interpersonal trust, trustworthiness, and gullibility. American Psychologist, 35, 1–7. Rousseau, D., Sitkin, S., Burt, R., & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: A cross-­ discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 393–404. Sasaki, M. (2019). Chapter 9: A cross-national study of criteria for judging the trustworthiness of others before a first meeting. In M.  Sasaki (Ed.), Trust in Contemporary Society (International Comparative Social Studies, Volume: 42) (pp.  177–209). https://doi. org/10.1163/9789004390430_011. Downloaded from Brill.com 07/29/2019 via free access Schwartz, S.  H. (1999). A theory of cultural values and some implications for work. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 48(1), 23–47. Shapiro, S. P. (1987). The social control of impersonal trust. American Journal of Sociology, 93(3), 623–658. Sheppard, B. H., & Sherman, D. M. (1998). The grammars of trust: A model and general implications. Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 422–437. Simpson, J. A. (2007). Psychological foundations of trust. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(5), 264–268. Singh, T. (2012). A social interactions perspective on trust and its determinants. Journal of Trust Research, 2(2), 107–135. Stonefish, T., Kwantes, C., Ng, P., Percy, A., & Szymczak, M. (2015). A cross-cultural examination of trust by gender roles. Presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, USA. Talaei, A., Kwantes, C. T., Eggett, J., Jamieson, K., & Najafi, M. (2015). The nature of Trust in Work and Family Contexts: A Qualitative Analysis. Presented at the 2015 annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL, USA.

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Tan, H. H., & Chee, D. (2005). Understanding interpersonal trust in a Confucian-influenced society : An exploratory study. International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 5(2), 197–212. Thielmann, I., & Hilbig, B. E. (2015). Trust: An integrative review from a Person–Situation perspective. Review of General Psychology, 19(3), 249–277. van’t Wout, M., & Sanfey, A. (2008). Friend or foe: The effect of implicit trustworthiness judgments in social decision-making. Cognition, 108(3), 796–803. VonDras, D. D., Pouliot, G. S., Malcore, S. A., & Iwahashi, S. (2008). Effects of culture and age on the perceived exchange of social support resources. The International Journal of Aging & Human Development, 67(1), 63–100. Wasti, S. A., Tan, H. H., & Erdil, S. E. (2010). Antecedents of trust across foci: A comparative study of Turkey and China. Management and Organization Review, 7(2), 279–302. Whitener, E. M., Maznevski, M. L., Hua, W., Saebo, S. R., & Ekelund, B. Z. (2000). Testing the cultural boundaries of a model of trust: Subordinate-manager relationships in China, Norway and the United States. UCLA Asia Institute Downloaded from http://escholarship.org/uc/ item/8th9x1fn Wu, Y., Zhang, M., Zhang, C., & Tian, X. (2015). Fairness‐related behaviour modulation by friendship is moderated by American primes in Chinese participants. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 18(4), 299–310. Yakovleva, M., Reilly, R. R., & Werko, R. (2010). Why do we trust? Moving beyond individual to dyadic perceptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 79–91. Yuki, M., Maddux, W. W., Brewer, M. B., & Takemura, K. (2005). Cross-cultural differences in relationship- and group-based trust. PSPB, 31(1), 48–62. Zaheer, A., McEvily, B., & Perrone, V. (1998). Does trust matter? Exploring the effects of interorganizational and interpersonal trust on performance. Organization Science, 9(2), 141–159. Zurcher, L. A. (1968). Particularism and organizational position: A cross-cultural analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 52(2), 139–144. Catherine T. Kwantes is Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Director of the Culture and Organizational Research Centre at the University of Windsor located in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She received an MSc in Clinical Psychology and MA and PhD degrees in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Her areas of research are on the intersection of societal and organizational cultures, and how societal cultures affect perceptions of trustworthiness in organizations, workplace interactions, and employee attitudes. She is currently co-principle investigator on a large multiyear, multi-institutional project Indigenous Workways: Creating cultures of trust via effective communication, building relationships, and a climate for cultural safety for Indigenous employees in Ontario and Canada. She has given lectures to audiences around the world, taught in numerous countries, and provided consultative services to organizations in North America and Asia. She has lived and worked in Canada, Japan, India, and the USA.  

Suzanne McMurphy is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology at the University of Windsor. She is the Chair of the Research Ethics Board and a Fellow in the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation and Rhetoric. She has a PhD in Social Policy, a master’s degree in Law and Social Policy, and master’s degree in Social Services from Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, USA. Her doctoral research was funded by a Fulbright Scholarship to Sweden where she studied the integration of law and social work in child welfare and criminal justice systems across Europe and North America. Her primary areas of interest are the dynamics of trust and trustworthiness between individuals and organizations (e.g., government, health care, justice systems). She also studies research ethics and public trust in scientific information.  

Chapter 2

Trust in Brazil: The Interplay of Jeitinho and Trust Conception Juliana B. Porto and Ronaldo Pilati

Abstract  To understand the concept of trust in Brazil, we must look closely at the context in which interpersonal relationships are developed and maintained. We propose that an in-depth approach should be considered with specific cultural features embedded in the social fabric, beyond the standard cultural dimensions examined in cross-cultural psychology research. In our view, one must disentangle specific behavioral patterns within the cultural setting that are closely related to any given psychological construct. This is particularly relevant when we seek to understand trust – a construct that is one of the bases of the social glue for society. Keywords  Trust · Trustworthiness · Brazil · Jeitinho · Culture

Joanna1 is a physician and a psychoanalyst, with a master’s degree in medicine. She is a retired professor, living in a large Brazilian city. On a sunny morning in March, she went shopping in a supermarket. In the parking lot, while taking the groceries from the cart and putting them into the car, she was approached by a woman who looked about 30 years old and was modestly dressed. This woman asked her if she knew where the nearest branch of the Federal Savings Bank (CEF) was and told her that she had been left at the supermarket by a taxi driver, hoping to get more information from someone inside the store. Without giving much time for Joanna to react, the woman asked if Joanna could take her to the bank. Joanna answered that she would not be able to do so because she was in a hurry. She indicated the direction to the bank. A few minutes later, a man appeared, walking through the parking lot. He looked about 40 years old and was dressed in white. When he neared Joanna’s car, the woman called him and asked for help to get to the bank. Joanna heard the  It is a fictitious name, but the case is real and happened to a relative of the second author.

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J. B. Porto () · R. Pilati University of Brasilia, Brasilia, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7_2

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woman’s explanation. The woman told the man that she was from the countryside, worked in a small textile factory, and needed to get to the CEF bank to exchange a lottery ticket that her boss had said she won. She also said that the total value of the prize was in the amount of US$100,000.00. The man replied that he could not take her to the bank because he was without his car at that moment. The two approached Joanna, and the man said he checked the ticket, and it was a winning ticket. He said that he was a physician and that his wife was pregnant and had just left the supermarket with the car, returning to his residence. Then, the woman approached and said that she would give them each US$10,000.00 if they helped her reach the CEF bank. Joanna, already starting the car to leave the parking lot, consented to give her a ride to the CEF bank, not far from the supermarket. The man also got into the car. While they were on the street, the woman argued that she could not trust people she did not know. She said she was afraid of having her winning ticket stolen. To fulfill her promise that she would give money to the two, she asked for guarantees: they should show her that they had money and stable financial conditions, as they had told her they were physicians. The man promptly said that he had a large amount of money in his residence, which was very close to where they were and that he could show the woman. He asked Joanna to leave her route and drive another two blocks to his residence, in a luxurious condominium in a good area of the city. The man got out of the car and minutes later returned with a box full of dollar bills, which he presented to the woman and Joanna, as proof that he had stable financial conditions and that he was not someone without possessions, acting only to steal the woman’s prize. Then, the woman turned to Joanna and said she wants the same proof and asked her to go to her house and show her valuables, like money or jewelry. Joanna claimed that she lived very far away and that she could not go to her residence. The woman and the man insisted, but Joanna, uncompromisingly, said that she could not go to her house, and if the woman still wanted the ride, she could leave her in front of the CEF bank. The woman insisted again on going to Joanna’s residence; however, Joanna said that she would not go and asked them to get out of her vehicle. They left the car, and Joanna went on her way. The case above is a real example of the winning ticket scam that is a common type of fraud with widespread recognition within Brazilian culture. It is a social influence situation because the fraudsters, to reach their goal, must convince the victim to trust in the woman in need. The plot is supported by an authority figure, the man who claimed to be a physician and a passerby; he was coincidently in the same social position as the targeted victim, Joanna. Fortunately, Joanna’s case had a happy ending, because she refused to take the fraudsters to her house. In Brazil, many widespread scam tactics are recognized by the public after they are practiced for some time. These are so frequent that in Brazilian lexicon there is an expression based on Brazil’s penal code to name someone who is not reliable. For Brazilians, a “person 171” is a reference to a fraudster because 171 is the article in the penal code that identifies this kind of crime. The widespread nature of a scam such as this reinforces behavioral patterns of Brazilians to always be suspicious of social interactions. To understand the concept of trust in Brazil, we must look closely at the context in which interpersonal relationships are developed and maintained. We propose that

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an in-depth approach should be considered with specific cultural features embedded in the social fabric, beyond the standard cultural dimensions examined in ­cross-­cultural psychology research. In our view, one must disentangle specific behavioral patterns within the cultural setting that are closely related to any given psychological construct. This is particularly relevant when we seek to understand trust – a construct that is one of the bases of the social glue for society. Scam tactics are not exclusive to the Brazilian culture. Various scams and frauds happen in virtually every culture, and it is possible to find official government information guiding citizens to avoid such situations (e.g., https://www.usa.gov/common-scams-frauds). However, the various scam manifestations are often rooted in important culturally conditioned social interaction strategies. This enhances the effectiveness of the scam and increases its potential for success. These scam tactics produce shared representations of trust in interpersonal relationships, affecting the way inhabitants of a particular culture comprehend and apply the notion of trust in their social interactions. Therefore, the analysis of mundane and culturally situated occurrences where trust develops is needed to help understand the construct. Such an approach is essential to comprehend social psychological phenomena situated in its contextual constraints, which should be an urgent agenda in psychology (Pettigrew, 2018) and all other behavioral sciences.

Brazil and Its Culture Brazil is the biggest country in South America. It is more than 8.5 million square kilometers, with more than 209 million inhabitants. In addition to its continental dimension, Brazil is a democratic federation of 27 states, organized in five geopolitical regions with one common language, Portuguese. To characterize the Brazilian culture, first, we describe the results from cross-cultural studies; next, we focus on emic studies to enlighten its relation to trust.

Brazil in Cross-Cultural Studies Cross-cultural research is relevant to help analyze and comprehend Brazilian culture. In terms of Hofstede’s six-dimension cultural model (Minkov, 2018), the Brazilian hierarchy appears in the following order (from higher to lower means): uncertainty avoidance, power distance, indulgence, masculinity, long-term orientation, and individualism. In the Schwartz 2006 value model, international comparisons cluster Brazil with other Latin American countries and show indicators close to the worldwide mean in all dimensions. Latin America is higher in hierarchy and embeddedness and lower in intellectual autonomy when compared to Western Europe. However, the ranking is the opposite when Brazil is compared to Africa, Middle Eastern cultures, South Asia, and Confucian-influenced cultures.

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When the data of the GLOBE project were analyzed (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004), Brazil scored below the average in the dimensions of assertiveness, in-group collectivism, and power distance. However, Brazil scored above the average on performance orientation, future orientation, humane orientation, institutional collectivism, gender egalitarianism, and uncertainty avoidance. Finally, in the analysis of the World Values Survey (WVS) data (Inglehart et  al., 2014), Brazil was in a middle position, being a little more traditional (−.80) and prioritizing more on self-expression values (.25). This mapping shows that Brazil does not have a specific feature that distinguishes it from other nations but is characterized by a central position in most of the traditional unpacking dimensions of comparative studies in cross-cultural research. However, comparative studies between nations are not able to grasp relevant cultural differences within Brazil. For that, we must take a closer look at Brazil to adequately account for the appropriate cultural features, seeking to frame trust within its cultural underpinnings. Considering the colonization history within the five Brazilian geopolitical regions, the country has identifiable subcultures (Pilati et al., 2015). This kind of evidence emerges when we analyze Brazilian geopolitical regions using the same traditional models of cultural unpacking described earlier in this chapter. For example, the South region is more hierarchical, individualistic, and masculine in the Hofstede model when compared with the Northeast region (Hofstede et al., 2010). Another comparison, conducted with value model (Schwartz, 1992) Schwartz’s pointed out that inhabitants of the Southeast endorse more values of universalism and stimulation when compared to those who live in the Midwest (Torres, Porto, Vargas, & Fischer, 2015). A third study, using Gouveia’s value model (Gouveia, Milfont, & Guerra, 2014) showed that people from the Southeast endorse more individualistic values than those from the Northeast (Fischer, Milfont, & Gouveia, 2011). These studies are evidence pointing to Brazil as a complex nation with rich subcultures. Therefore, using the country’s mean scores on the various cultural dimensions does not adequately represent its population. What about cross-cultural comparative research on trust? One of the most comprehensive sets of data available is from the World Values Survey (WVS). In its sixth wave (Wave 6), when asked if most people can be trusted, 92.2% of the Brazilian sample said they need to be very careful in dealing with most people in Brazil (Inglehart et al., 2014). The results from the previous waves were similar: Wave 5 = 89.2%, Wave 3 = 96.5%, and Wave 2 = 92.5%. This pattern of distrust in Brazil is one of the highest ratings among all the countries being compared. For instance, considering only the data from 60 countries in Wave 6, only five countries (Colombia, Estonia, Ghana, Philippines, and Trinidad and Tobago) have distrust ratings higher than Brazil. Still, in Brazil (Wave 6), when participants were asked about their trust in members of specific groups, the pattern varied among these target groups. With regard to family, 92.8% of the participants reported they would trust somewhat or completely; 57.8% reported they would trust somewhat or completely “people you know personally;: 44.2% would would trust somewhat or completely people in their neighborhood; 44.2% reported they would trust somewhat or completely; and only 18% reported they would trust people you meet for the first

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time somewhat or completely. With the decrease of social proximity, less trust is reported by Brazilians. Despite the usefulness of comparative studies between nations, there are concerns about the WVS conceptualization and measurement of trust. The way the WVS conceptualizes trust can be understood as an imposed etic bias, which produces abnormal results in the description of trust in Brazilian samples. There is evidence that the comprehension of “most people” when answering WVS items is scattered in a broad range of social categories by Brazilians, such as family, friends, and acquaintance. Most Brazilians think of unfamiliar people as those who are seen for the first time. Sometimes, for instance, they consider work colleagues as “unfamiliar people.” The way Brazilian participants of the WVS waves understand the expression most people affects their answer of trust perception. If they perceive most people are like friends and relatives, then they trust, but if they see most people as unfamiliar, then they trust less (de Aquino, 2017). The same pattern can be observed in the specific questions used in the WVS. Literature highlights the validity problems with this measure due to the referent shift (Glaeser, Laibson, Scheinkman, & Soutter, 1999). That is, there is a problem when interpreting WVS data. But even with this potentially low validity, these results may indicate that Brazilians have little trust in the general population. How might specific features of Brazilian culture help us understand this phenomenon?

Trust and Emic Studies on Brazil In this chapter, we go deeper into Brazilian culture to explain these results and make sense of the social mechanisms that perpetuate them. Our attempt is similar to the work of Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994), but contrary to their findings in Japan, we have no evidence of inconsistency between the survey results and common sense. We intend to develop a conceptual analysis, giving room for further empirical research to test the conceptual analyses undertaken in this chapter. Nevertheless, the distinction made by Yamagishi and Yamagishi between trust and assurance and the influence of social uncertainty are relevant for interpreting the way Brazilians deal with trust. Yamagishi and Yamagishi first differentiated confidence from trust, and they argued that trust exists when a person expects goodwill and benign intentions of the other party, and thus, it is an internal evaluation of the partner in a relationship. A related concept to trust is assurance. Assurance exists when one expects goodwill from the partner because of the circumstances. Yamagishi and Yamagishi asserted that assurance is based on the evaluation of the incentive structure within which the relationship takes place. If this structure restricts a dishonest behavior, one can expect an honest behavior, even if the other person does not have goodwill. Thus, while trust is based on the evaluation of the person, assurance is based on the situation. Finally, they present the concept of social uncertainty as a “mixed-motive incentive structure in which the actor does not have the capability of correctly detecting the partner’s intentions” (p. 133). In order to overcome social uncertainty,

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people establish committed relations. A committed relationship is long term where partners decline better alternatives to keep old partners. When social uncertainty is low, the development of mutually committed relationships lowers the need for trust because history will assure the partner’s good intentions. In contrast, trust can also encourage people to move out of committed relationships and explore new opportunities. Finally, they define trust as a bias in which a person “overestimates the benignity of the partner’s intentions beyond the level warranted by the prudent assessment of the available information” (p. 136). Trust is a fundamental concept and functions like a glue for holding social fabric. But we must advance the study by giving substantive consideration of its cultural underpinnings and, at the same time, seek ways to consider its universality. It is impossible to consider trust as a unidimensional construct because its particularities are scaffolded over culture. In the case of Brazil, we consider jeitinho as an emic factor that must be described to understand trust. Jeitinho is closely connected to the Brazilian identity, and its core constituents influence social bonds and have direct relevance on how trust is defined and conceived within the Brazilian culture.

Psychological Studies on Jeitinho Jeitinho is a behavioral script commonly used and recognized by Brazilians. Jeitinho is a way to solve a problem with a creative solution that involves conciliation, cunningness, simpatia, and trickery (Ferreira, Fischer, Porto, Pilati, & Milfont, 2012; Miura, Pilati, Milfont, Ferreira, & Fischer, 2019; Pilati, Milfont, Ferreira, Porto, & Fischer, 2011). Jeitinho is a concept initially researched by Brazilian social scientists where it is typically conceptualized as a multidimensional construct. It combines features of a strategy to deal with the formalism of the society, a way to cool down tensions in social relationships in order to combat excessive bureaucracy, and also a social navigation technique to deal with interpersonal rules (Duarte, 2006). Previously, Barbosa (1992) defined jeitinho as a particular way of solving a problem or situation that involves a creative solution frequently comprising the use of deception or trickery. Recently, psychological researchers have been exploring the conceptual definition and the psychological underpinning of jeitinho. To identify its dimensions descriptively, Pilati et al. (2011) posited seven themes that are part of the construct: sympathy, harm to another, malandragem (deception or trickery), disregard for social rules, innovative processes, power relation, and compensation. Subsequently, Ferreira et al. (2012) presented a measure of jeitinho based on various scenarios. The authors identified three factors: (1) corruption factor, which consisted of situations depicting the use of illegal means; (2) creativity factor, which consisted of items using creative and innovative ways of solving problems; and (3) social norm breaking factor, which depicts strategies that bypass social norms to solve a problem. Pilati et al. (2011) and Ferreira et al. (2012) described several typical scenarios representing all of the dimensions of jeitinho. Some of the examples are as follows:

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a cleaning clerk who works for a company and sells snacks to earn extra money; a granddaughter who invites her grandma to go to the mall for the purpose of using the elderly designated parking space; people jumping the queue by indicating that they have a friend or an acquaintance already there; a driver stuck in a traffic jam driving on the shoulder of the road; an employee who asks a taxi driver for a receipt with an amount larger than the actual fare to receive reimbursement from the company; a physician who offers patients a discount if no invoice is requested (an invoice obliges physicians to pay taxes); and a driver who offers a bribe to a police officer so as to not be given a traffic ticket. These examples are typical social situations in Brazil and in other countries. Some examples have little or no consequences; others are clearly infractions with defined sanctions in legal codes. But all these examples are performed in a way in which the main features of jeitinho are used to increase the outcomes of success. They are strategies to receive personal benefits that circumvent situations in which there are clear definitions of what should be done (injunctive norms). The presence of jeitinho conditions people to believe that a stranger would always be looking for a chance to take advantage of a situation; hence, one needs to be cautious in social situations. In this sense, jeitinho is an important cultural feature to understand trust in Brazil. It may be a social frame that influences the development of biases about interpersonal relations, and in the case of trust, jeitinho might have produced a bias toward distrust of others. Researchers have also proposed and explored jeitinho as a dispositional variable (Miura et  al., 2019). Considering that jeitinho is a cultural syndrome, Brazilians develop some typical behavioral strategies for interpersonal relations. In their Personal Jeitinho Scale, Miura et al. described two main dimensions. The first, simpatico, consisted of behavioral markers related to creativity and simpatia, showing affection, demonstrating esteem to others during the interaction. The second dimension, malandro, consisted of behaviors related to social norm breaking, deception, and cunningness. A study conducted by Ferreira et al. (2012) provided the first evidence of the structural relations of jeitinho to personality traits. For instance, corruption was negatively and creativity was positively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness. Miura et  al. (2019) reported that jeitinho simpatico was positively related to openness and agreeableness and jeitinho malandro was negatively associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness. In our view, jeitinho must be understood as a cultural feature of Brazil that has similar counterparts in other cultures. It is an informal social influence strategy used in Brazil that shares common features with similar concepts found in other cultures. For instance, comparative research has suggested that it has commonalities with wasta in Arab culture, “pulling strings” in Anglo-Saxon cultures, and guanxi in Chinese culture (Smith, Huang, Harb, & Torres, 2011; Smith et  al., 2012). For instance, Smith et al. (2011) described that participants from Brazil, China, Lebanon, and the United Kingdom all classified scenarios depicting jeitinho, wasta, and guanxi as typical of their cultures. Additionally, participants from one culture recognized as typical scenarios representing an informal strategy typical of other cultures (e.g., a Lebanese individual recognizes a guanxi scenario as somewhat usual in his or her own culture). The comparative study of Smith and collaborators is

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relevant to avoid an “emic-imposed” view. Identifying the common aspects of social influence strategies is a window to reach a broader understanding of the plasticity of human behavioral adaptation. However focusing only on comparative studies does not give us the possibility to fully comprehend the social influence process in a given cultural context. An indepth description is possible and needed with an ethnopsychological research orientation (Adair & Díaz-Loving, 1999; Pilati et al., 2011). For example, this approach can further help enlighten our comprehension of jeitinho due to the identification of the simpatico dimension. This dimension represents the affectionate and cordial way of directing social interaction (Pilati et al., 2011) and is similar to the typical behavioral script in Latin-American cultures called simpatia (Ramirez-­Esparza, Gosling, & Pennebaker, 2008). For these reasons, we argue that a refined conceptualization of the construct is essential to more accurately understand jeitinho as a cultural syndrome, as well as to describe its influence on the conception of trust among Brazilians.

Jeitinho and Trust Jeitinho is a popular strategy to deal with situations in Brazil. It is related to interpersonal relationships between citizens and is relevant to comprehending the way Brazilians develop a cognitive representation of trust. It plays a central role in the perception of uncertainty in social relationships; it fills a central gap in the understanding of trust as described by Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994). Its use encompasses the circumvention of social norms, trickery, cunningness, and deceptive techniques. It is regularly applied based on simpatia, demonstrating affection to others in a friendly and cordial way, avoiding tensions in the relation. Usually, it involves new solutions and leads to unexpected outcomes. To comprehend the impact of the use of jeitinho on trust conception, we must consider the perception of low assurance in the environment. Brazilians perceive the social structure to be ineffective in discouraging dishonest behaviors. Based on the Wave 6 data of the WVS, the level of confidence Brazilians reported with regard to institutions gives some hints of their assurance level. For instance, 50.6% reported a great deal or quite a lot confidence in courts, 45% in police, 41% in the government, 20.9% in the parliament, and 15.9% in political parties. Hence, the perception of low assurance among Brazilian is exemplified by the general low level of trust indicated by the findings of the WVS. For example, data from de Aquino (2017) suggests that the meaning of trust is affected by the personal proximity of others. When others are relatives or friends, the trust level is high. Data from Wave 6 of the WVS also corroborates that a high degree of variation exists in trust perception among varying social groups identified. For example, for family members, the trust reached more than 90% (Inglehart et al., 2014), while it was much lower for those who were not as close, such as strangers. Such generalized distrust is a good indicator of the lack of confidence of Brazilians in other Brazilians outside of one’s fam-

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ily. The need for social bonds to increase trust is part of a global understanding that having a high possibility of direct reciprocity is necessary in order to achieve trust. Thus, a committed relationship is a strategy to compensate for the failure of the social system and to inhibit dishonest behaviors. The use of jeitinho simpatico may be enhanced in this culture because it simulates a close relationship between strangers and allows one to be disguised as a friend. When a person is effective in the use of this strategy, the victim will trust a stranger and surrender to his/her appeals. Another response to overcome generalized distrust is the case of nepotism in Brazil. In Brazil, it is not unusual to link the success of one’s own political career to one’s family relationships (Miguel, Marques, & Machado, 2015). According to Miguel et al. (2015), 40% of all federal deputies elected in 2002, 2006, and 2010 in Brazil had relatives in politics. In addition, Brazilian politicians often hire relatives or close friends for vacant public offices under their control. Since the constitution of 1988, new rules and regulations have made it harder to hire relatives; however, until now it has still been common to manage a public career with the support of one’s relatives. As a recent case example of family influencing politics, the new president of Brazil started his mandate at the beginning of 2019. He has three sons with public mandates: two in the federal parliament and one in the city of Rio de Janeiro. This phenomenon is not limited to the political arena, and we can also find the influence of families in many of the major traditional professional careers, such as medicine and law. It is natural to expect professional relationships to exist between and among one’s relatives. The justification is I trust my family. Who would disagree with that? The result of this cultural feature is that the uncertainty perception and low assurance result in a low mean level of trust as described by the WVS data. This cultural configuration is a condition that affects the socio-cognitive processes of Brazilians. In social cognition, the chronic accessibility of specific content (Fiske & Taylor, 2017) is a powerful mechanism to shape social perception and social behavior. It is possible to manipulate different aspects of perception and physiological responses by inducing relevant cognitive cultural content via priming (Chao, Chen, Roisman, & Hong, 2007). Fischer, Ferreira, Milfont, and Pilati (2014) showed that it is possible to prime jeitinho content and reported that Brazilians who identified more with the Brazilian culture were more prone to endorse corrupt behavior when primed with its content. Results of priming research can be interpreted as evidence for jeitinho as a critical cultural syndrome in Brazil. Brazilians’ cognitive representation of trust is affected by its cultural syndromes. It can be hypothesized that Brazilians tend to have a distrust bias, perceiving their co-citizens as advantage-takers who use deception and cunningness strategies and break social norms to obtain personal gains. This perception is reinforced by the general belief that the social system in Brazil is ineffective in discouraging dishonesty. In addition, Brazil has consistently experienced economic crises, and economic deterioration also decreases generalized trust (Navarro-Carrillo, Valor-Segura, Lozano, & Moya, 2018). However, a distrust bias is not prevalent for every kind of interaction, for every Brazilian in every type of situation. While we should avoid generalizations, the suspicion is frequently present in social interactions. Such an

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attitude even has implications for the way governments and organizations in Brazil treat Brazilians in general. It seems that suspicion is the general rule, and trust is the exception. The latter is only reserved for the ones to whom they are committed. In conclusion, following Yamagishi and Yamagishi’s (1994) model, we propose that Brazilians have low trust and assurance, in part because of its culture. The public policies and social norms sanctions are too weak to guarantee honest behaviors from people and institutions. Additionally, Brazilian society has a particular characteristic that is highly recognized as very representative of its people – jeitinho. We argue that this social behavior may exacerbate the social uncertainty, since people would expect everybody to use it and to be tricked by it, making strangers mistrustful. Committed relations based on previous history and family relationships are established to deal with this uncertain situation. However, jeitinho is well adapted to this scenario because people using this behavioral strategy can convince anyone that they are acquaintances or even longtime friends, fending off any fear of uncertainty and making the person susceptible to requests. Thus, when analyzing jeitinho at the social level, Brazilians would see social level as a threat to their relationship with strangers and would trust family and friends more. It is so pervasive in Brazilian society precisely because it takes advantage of this reliance on committed relations to deal with social uncertainty. The use of simpatia simulates a close relationship between people and can deceive others to trust and return with a favor based on the supposed good relationship between them, thus perpetuating the behavior further.

Practical Implications: Organizations, Institutions, and More Having a high level of trust is important to societies and organizations. Trust is related to civic engagement and collaboration and can positively influence economic and political aspects (Putnam, 2000). Trust is positively related to a better quality of democracy and more stable political institutions (Rennó, 2011). In organizations, trust reduces transaction costs; increases cooperation, prosocial, and extra-role behaviors among members; and promotes voluntary deference to organizational authorities (Kramer, 1999). It is a central feature for a wide array of activities, such as functional operations of institutions and organizations. As discussed so far, Brazil has a great deal of room to improve the perception of trust among its inhabitants. From a societal point of view, the general lack of trust of Brazilians has several implications. Recently, the well-known corruption scandals related to the Lava Jato operation started to surface in the media coverage after the political turmoil began in the middle of 2013. These scandals have significant impacts on the confidence of Brazilians in its public institutions. Confidence is essential to the country’s pursuit of the population’s welfare, but these scandals are undermining it. Brazil must somehow address the low levels of trust perception. The media coverage of corruption scandals is not helping the population to improve its trust in public and private institutions. As pointed out by behavioral sciences (OECD,

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2017), there is a moral compass that people use to guide their behavior with i­ ntegrity. The population must identify actions indicating that the society is advancing in terms of its integrity. The broad media coverage is only focusing on the scandals and not on good practices. These one-sided media reports are preventing Brazilian people from establishing confidence in public officials and offices. Positive changes resulting from operations like Lava Jato and integrity policies within companies are not receiving the coverage required to help change the Brazilian population’s trust. Brazil, as a nation, could greatly benefit from media reporting not only the punishments but also the positive changes stemming from prevention policies. A focus on punishment and control is necessary to guarantee assurance, especially if the norms and their consequences are enforced. But this is not sufficient to increase trust perception. Behavioral sciences have been emphasizing that integrity policies should focus on prevention as that is fundamental to trust perception (OECD, 2017). Strategies focusing on good practices beyond control and prevention are relevant to help model the expected, desirable type of behaviors, producing a spiral effect of desired conduct (Keizer, Lindenberg, & Steg, 2008). Overt discussions and planned education concerning integrity in schools is an example of an action that could help increase trust levels in Brazilians. In addition, institutions and leaders with genuine benevolent intentions could promote general trust. Thus, a change in institutions’ cultures to value integrity and trust throughout its policies and practices and integrity criteria in the selection of leaders would be advisable. It is also important to expand research on jeitinho and related subjects, as a way to alter the undesirable aspects of this phenomenon. The country must maintain and cultivate its own characteristics for the sake of its identity, and jeitinho is a special sociocultural feature of Brazil. The research thus far has demonstrated both the positive and negative facets of it, and we should now emphasize on what is favorable to help improve people’s self-esteem. The use of jeitinho can make people more humane and empathetic with the problems of the less privileged. Brazil ranks 79/189 on inequality in the United Nations Human Development Report, and it certainly has much to improve in this area. The norms and policies in social institutions still reinforce this inequality, and jeitinho may be a means to rebalance the social forces and make people aware of the social distance. This type of prevention approach is fundamental in overcoming the effects of the aspects of jeitinho that can lead to the violation of social norms. From an organizational perspective, professionals and managers should be aware of the high level of distrust among Brazilians and its impacts on organizational policies and communication. Although the confidence in major companies is quite high (58% have a great deal or quite a lot confidence) in WVS Wave 6 (Inglehart et al., 2014), employees are usually cautious about CEOs. Thus, employees often distrust formal communications and doubt benign intentions of leaders. Organizations must build more committed relationships among their employees to overcome these feelings. Above all, we must understand that the conception of trust is a multidimensional phenomenon with manifestations at multiple levels of analysis. As argued by Pettigrew (2018), psychology has to move to a contextual science in which cultural

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factors would be considered to comprehend psychological phenomena. The ­analysis of trust in a culturally situated perspective is a scientific strategy to consider a multilevel approach, and it can pave the way for a more effective action to understand, develop, and deal with trust. Pursuing the development of trust and confidence in a nation is to face the challenge of coping with multiple factors and seeking a permanent cultural change. But this change should be done in a way that can preserve the cultural identity of its inhabitants.

Concluding Remarks The main objective of this chapter is to adopt a cultural perspective in reviewing trust research in Brazil. The high levels of distrust among Brazilians reported in comparative studies (de Aquino, 2017; Inglehart et al., 2014) were framed and conceptualized within the characteristics of Brazilian culture. We propose that jeitinho, a cultural syndrome, is essential to comprehend the meaning of trust among Brazilians. Jeitinho defines strategies of social interaction in which the malandragem dimension is related to the use of deceptive strategies and trickery. This dimension increases the chronic perception of suspicion in social interactions, producing a distrust bias. We argue that these features, associated with the general belief of low assurance for refraining from dishonest behavior, are the psychological underpinnings of how trust is construed among Brazilians. Returning to the real case which started the present chapter, the scam tactics which are widespread within Brazil is a good example of the use of the malandragem dimension of jeitinho. The broad influence of scams incites the distrust bias of Brazilians. Further, the daily media information that is given to the public can produce this distrust bias. There are many such examples: the corruption scandals, presented almost daily in the media coverage in Brazil since 2014; organizations that do not follow the rules and who kill others but are not being punished, such as the 2019 tailing dam collapse; and the relationship between public and private organizations which frequently fails to keep their promises and citizens. As a cultural syndrome, we must understand jeitinho in all its dimensions. As evidence shows, Brazilians have a shared cognition of this cultural feature (Ferreira et al., 2012; Fischer et al., 2014; Miura et al., 2019). Its psychological dimensions also include simpatia. This is the dimension which depicts internationally recognized behavioral characteristics of Brazilians, such as our innovative ways of doing things and solving problems (it is not uncommon to hear from scientists and colleagues from other countries that Brazilians are creative in research strategies), our affectionate way of interacting with tourists and foreigners, and many other characteristics for which Brazilians are proud. This syndrome represents a part of a Brazilian national identity. Like any other large social group, the Brazilian culture is changing, even in its comprehension of social interactions. Scientifically grounded discussions concerning jeitinho are producing new insights for new generations of Brazilians to under-

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stand the “dark side” of jeitinho and its consequences. In the last five years, Brazil has been shaken with corruption scandals. This issue is part of daily conversations. The last presidential election resulted in a candidate winning who had a significant amount of his political platform in anti-corruption speech, attacking the “old politics.” The anger of the population toward the previous party that was in power for 13 years, based on the results of corruption scandals, was a fundamental ingredient for the outcome of the last presidential and legislative election. The other part of the president’s political platform was a rejuvenation of right-wing views. These occurrences are producing changes in the opinion of Brazilians about themselves and their cultural features. Jeitinho is frequently blamed as part of our problems as a nation. The political turmoil the country has faced since 2013, the economic challenges related to the recession, the need of structural reformation of the public sector, the questioning of Brazilian identity due to the intensification of research on jeitinho by the behavioral sciences, the escalation of communication via social media, among other factors, are producing many changes in Brazil. It is not clear yet how these challenges will impact trust relations for Brazil. However, unquestionably, the eventual changes in trust perception must be analyzed in its cultural referents.

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Gouveia, V. V., Milfont, T. L., & Guerra, V. M. (2014). Functional theory of human values: Testing its content and structure hypotheses. Personality and Individual Differences, 60, 41–47. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.12.012 Hofstede, G., Garibaldi de Hilal, A. V., Malvezzi, S., Tanure, B., Vinken, H., Garibaldi, A. V., … Vinken, H. (2010). Comparing regional cultures within a country: Lessons from Brazil. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 41(3), 336–352. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022109359696 House, R. J., Hanges, P. J., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W., & Gupta, V. (2004). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. London, UK: Sage. Inglehart, R., Haerpfer, C., Moreno, A., Welze, C., Kizilova, K., Diez-Medrano, J., … Puranen, B. (2014). World values survey: Round six – Country-pooled Datafile. Madrid, Spain: JD Systems Institute. Keizer, K., Lindenberg, S., & Steg, L. (2008). The spreading of disorder. Science (New York, N.Y.), 322, 1681–1685. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1161405 Kramer, R.  M. (1999). Trust and distrust in organizations: Emerging perspectives, enduring questions. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 569–598. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev. psych.50.1.569 Miguel, L. F., Marques, D., & Machado, C. (2015). Capital Familiar e Carreira Política no Brasil: Gênero, Partido e Região nas Trajetórias para a Câmara dos Deputados. Dados, 58(3), 721– 747. https://doi.org/10.1590/00115258201557 Minkov, M. (2018). A revision of Hofstede’s model of national culture: Old evidence and new data from 56 countries. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 25(2), 231–256. https://doi. org/10.1108/CCSM-03-2017-0033 Miura, M. A., Pilati, R., Milfont, T. L., Ferreira, M. C., & Fischer, R. (2019). Between simpatia and malandragem: Brazilian jeitinho as an individual difference variable. PLOS ONE, 14(4), e0214929. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214929 Navarro-Carrillo, G., Valor-Segura, I., Lozano, L. M., & Moya, M. (2018). Do economic crises always undermine trust in others? The case of generalized, interpersonal, and in-group trust. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01955 OECD. (2017). Behavioural Insights for Integrity Policies. Paris, France: OECD Publishing. Pettigrew, T. F. (2018). The emergence of contextual social psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 44(7), 963–971. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218756033 Pilati, R., Ferreira, M. C., Porto, J. B., de Oliveira Borges, L., de Lima, I. C., & Lellis, I. L. (2015). Is Weiner’s attribution-help model stable across cultures? A test in Brazilian subcultures. International Journal of Psychology, 50(4). https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12100 Pilati, R., Milfont, T. L., Ferreira, M. C., Porto, J. B., & Fischer, R. (2011). Brazilian jeitinho: Understanding and explaining an indigenous psychological construct. Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 45(1), 29–38. Putnam, R.  D. (2000). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. In Culture and politics (pp.  223–234). New  York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-1-349-62397-6_12 Ramirez-Esparza, N., Gosling, S.  D., & Pennebaker, J.  W. (2008). Paradox lost: Unraveling the puzzle of Simpatia. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39(6), 703–715. https://doi. org/10.1177/0022022108323786 Rennó, L. (2011). Validade e confiabilidade das medidas de confiança interpessoal: o barômetro das Américas. Dados, 54(3), 391–428. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0011-52582011000300005 Schwartz, S. (2006). A theory of cultural value orientations: Explication and applications. Comparative Sociology, 5(2), 137–182. https://doi.org/10.1163/156913306778667357 Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 24, 1–65. https:// doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60281-6 Smith, P.  B., Huang, H.  J., Harb, C., & Torres, C. (2011). How distinctive are indigenous ways of achieving influence? A comparative study of Guanxi, Wasta, Jeitinho, and “Pulling Strings”. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43(1), 135–150. https://doi. org/10.1177/0022022110381430

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Smith, P.  B., Torres, C., Leong, C.-H., Budhwar, P., Achoui, M., & Lebedeva, N. (2012). Are indigenous approaches to achieving influence in business organizations distinctive? A comparative study of guanxi, wasta, jeitinho, svyazi and pulling strings. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(2), 333–348. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2011.5 61232 Torres, C. V., Porto, J. B., Vargas, L. M., & Fischer, R. (2015). A meta-analysis of basic human values in Brazil: Observed differences within the country. Revista Psicologia Organizações e Trabalho, 15(1), 89–102. https://doi.org/10.17652/rpot/2015.1.356 Yamagishi, T., & Yamagishi, M. (1994). Trust and commitment in the United States and Japan. Motivation and Emotion, 18(2), 129–166. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02249397 Juliana Barreiros Porto is Associate Professor at the Institute of Psychology, University of Brasília, Brazil. She obtained her doctorate in Psychology at the University of Brasília. She is a former member of the board of the Brazilian Association of Work and Organizational Psychology and Associate Editor of rPOT and Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa. She has expertise in Organizational Psychology and her research focuses primarily on organizational culture, work and personal values, ethical behavior, and well-being at work. She has published articles in the main Brazilian journals and Nonprofit Management and Leadership, International Journal of Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.  

Ronaldo Pilati Ronaldo Pilati is Associate Professor in the Social and Organizational Psychology Department, University of Brasília, Brazil. He works in Social Psychology, investigating social cognitive basic processes of dishonest behavior, morality, and prosocial behavior. He also investigates indigenous social influence processes in Brazil, as the case o Jeitinho, exploring its psychological underpinnings. He is the current President (2020–2021) of the Brazilian Psychological Society. He has published more than 50 papers in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, PLOS One, International Journal of Psychology, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, Social Psychology, and other international journals.  

Chapter 3

Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Trust and Trustworthiness from an African Perspective Erhabor S. Idemudia and Babatola D. Olawa

Abstract In many African languages, trust connotes ‘dependability,’ ‘hope,’ ‘expectation,’ and ‘faith.’ Trust in the Yoruba (Nigeria) language is ‘igbẹkẹle,’ which literally implies ‘dependability’. In Zulu (South Africa), trust means ‘ithemba’ and implies ‘trust,’ ‘hope,’ ‘expectation,’ ‘faith,’ and ‘dependence.’ Among the Edo people of Nigeria, trust means ‘Imuentinýan/iyegbekọ/Ọmwan imuentinýan’ which also means to depend to rely on someone. In the Hausa language (Nigeria), trust (‘dogara’) means faith or dependency (on God), which requires humility, not relying on your own strength or wisdom. Among the Igbos (Nigeria), the same concept means ‘ntụkwasị obi’ (trust) and ‘ho tšepa ha’ (confidence) in Sesotho (South Africa). Trust in Setswana of South Africa/Botswana is ‘tshêpa’ (trusts, trusting, trusted) which means let a person have or use something in the belief that he or she will behave responsibly (i.e., demonstrate trustworthiness). In this sense, both concepts are not mutually exclusive. Trust is the bedrock of every human interaction whether it be social or economic. Trust can be learned and unleared, as when trust is betrayed, caution sets in. Hence the proverb sees trust as human nature and that trust can also be learned and unlearned because when trust is betrayed (more than once), then caution sets in. Hence the proverb ‘once bitten, twice shy’ English printer, is known to famously have used the version of the saying ‘Once which implies that an ‘unpleasant experience induces caution.’ Africa as a people has been bitten more than once: from the time of slavery to the colonial period and postcolonial activities. Keywords  Trust · Trustworthiness · Africa · Colonialism · Societal culture

E. S. Idemudia (*) Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, Mafikeng, South Africa e-mail: [email protected] B. D. Olawa Lifestyle & Diseases Research Entity (MC), North-West University, Mafikeng, South Africa

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7_3

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Trust and trustworthiness are not mutually exclusive concepts. According to McLeod (2015), trust is important but also dangerous. Trust is important because it helps people to depend on others and dangerous because it comes with a risk when the trusted betrays the trustor. Some of the things that could be entrusted to the trustee include self-respect, loss of material things and money. Trustworthiness, however, is ‘the propensity to fulfil another’s positive implicit or explicit expectations regarding a particular action’ (Levine, Bitterly, Cohen, & Schweitzer, 2018, p. 5). Defining trust and differentiating it from trustworthiness is a Herculean task which, according to Bauer (2017), is a ‘conceptual “jungle” that is hard to pervade’. There are many definitions of the concepts which abound in literature, but we find Bauer’s definition interesting as it bears mark with the ways trust and trustworthiness are conceived in many African languages. These concepts are found on the basis of the following five assumptions: both concepts play a role in situations that use few parameters, for example, ‘taking trust to be a three-place predicate’ (A trusts B with valued thing C) (Baier, 1986, p. 236; Harding, 1992, p. 154); both can be conceived as probabilities; both have temporal dimensions that refer to expectations anchored in time; both have positive value for the trustor; and, finally, both concepts are at stake in all sorts of situations, (for details, see Bauer, 2017).

The Meaning of Trust in African Languages In many African languages, trust connotes ‘dependability’, ‘hope’, ‘expectation’ and ‘faith’. Trust in the Yoruba (Nigeria) language is ‘igbẹkẹle’, which literally implies ‘dependability’. In Zulu (South Africa), trust means ‘ithemba’ and implies ‘trust’, ‘hope’, ‘expectation’, ‘faith’ and ‘dependence’. Among the Edo people of Nigeria, trust means ‘Imuentinýan/iyegbekọ/Ọmwan imuentinýan,’ which also means to depend or rely on someone. In the Hausa language (Nigeria), trust (‘dogara’) means faith or dependency (on God), which requires humility, not relying on your own strength or wisdom. Among the Igbos (Nigeria), the same concept means ‘ntụkwasị obi’ (trust) and ‘ho tšepa ha’ (confidence) in Sesotho (South Africa). Trust in Setswana of South Africa/Botswana is ‘tshêpa’ (trusts, trusting, trusted), which means let a person have or use something in the belief that he or she will behave responsibly (i.e., demonstrate trustworthiness). In this sense, both concepts are not mutually exclusive. Trust is the bedrock of every human interaction whether it be social or economic. Craig (2017) sees trust as human nature and that trust can also be learned and unlearned because when trust is betrayed (more than once) caution sets in. Hence the proverb ‘once bitten, twice shy’. William Caxton, the first English printer, is known to famously have used the version of the saying ‘Once bitten, twice shy’, which implies an ‘unpleasant experience induces caution’.

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Slave Trade and the Displacement of Trust Africa as a people has been bitten more than once: from the time of slavery to the colonial period and postcolonial activities. The African people trusted the ‘white man’ who came in religious clothing but eventually carried out several outrageous and almost permanent damage on the people of Africa by pillaging their natural resources and engaging in inhuman degradation and many atrocities. Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) detailed how the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades eroded trust levels and caused a culture of mistrust within Africa despite being events that occurred over 400 years ago. The study reported that individuals whose ancestors were heavily raided during the slave trade are less trusting today. The study found a causal relationship using evidence from several identification strategies. According to Nunn and Wantchekon, the impact of the slave trade mainly affected what they call internal factors such as cultural beliefs and values. The modus operandi of capture people to be enslaved, according to the authors, was through state-­organized raids and warfare. Using the judicial system to label targeted individuals as witches/wizards or adulterers, they were brought before the court, and when found guilty, they were sold as slaves. Other methods included kidnapping and trickery by family members and so-called friends or treacherous friends and acquaintances, thereby breeding a culture of insecurity and mistrust among family members and the communities in general. This was, unfortunately, the bedrock and foundation of the African person. Identified players were slave merchants, Europeans, village heads and slave raiders, and as such, they were key players in promoting internal conflict which ‘pitted neighbour against neighbour’ (Hawthorne, 2003, pp. 106–107). The authors concluded that because slaves were often taken or tricked into slavery by individuals close to them, the slave trade itself may have eroded trust even among the most intimate social relationships. In addition, because chiefs often were slave traders or were forced to sell their own people into slavery, the slave trade also may have been the reason for a mistrust of political figures among local leaders. In explaining the origins of institutions and cultural norms, Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) claimed that high mistrust in Africa is the outcome of more than four centuries of slave trade because of the negative effects slave trade had on trust in Africa. The study looked into a variety of ethnic groups and used the 2005 Afrobarometer survey of approximately 20,000 individuals in 17 African countries belonging to 185 different ethnic groups. The survey measured trust in ethnicity-specific slave exports using different measures of slave exports, regions of slave exports, exports/ historic population and other variables including individual controls, district controls, country fixed effects and characteristics of ethnicities. The study found a strong significant relationship between slave exports and trust. They also found that trust is higher among people farther from the coastal areas than people from around coastal areas. Outside Africa, no relationship was found between distance from the

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coast and trust. They also found that the slave trade altered the cultural norms of the ethnic groups exposed to the slave trade, and that resulted in a long-term ­deterioration of institutions, which allowed individuals to cheat and consequently led to a lack of trustworthiness. Using the 2008 Afrobarometer survey, which includes addition of two new countries and more ethnic groups, Deconinck and Verpoorten (2013) replicated and confirmed the study of Nunn and Wantchekon (2011). Today ethnic groups that heavily experienced slave trade show lower intensity of trust in their neighbours, relatives, local government and co-ethnics compared to ethnic groups exposed to fewer raids (Nunn & Wantchekon, 2011).

Slavery: Erosion of Traditional Cultural Norms According to Aborisade (2015), one of the most intense controversies in Africa today includes how to handle the problem of the dislocation of shared African values, beliefs and practices. What constitutes the most appropriate type of relationship between the individual and society is a critical question. This is because African countries have generally not been successful in reconstructing their societies in a manner that can significantly help their peoples to realize their human potential. This, in turn, brings about distrust. Idemudia (2004, 2005, 2009) has shown how culture affects the African way of life, which also includes social interactions involving trust and trustworthiness. An African is a ‘we person’, a group person (Idemudia, 2009). The African way of living is enshrined in the concept of an African philosophy – ‘Ubuntu’ derived from a Nguni Bantu word meaning ‘humanity,’ ‘human nature,’ ‘humanness,’ ‘humanity,’ ‘virtue,’ ‘goodness’ and ‘kindness.’ In general terms, it can be translated to mean ‘I am because we are’ and when used in a philosophical sense implies the ‘belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity’ (Mnyandu, 1997; Ubuntu philosophy, n.d.). Ubuntu is about interconnectedness of the African family. According to Senghor (1964), this kind of communal living is collectivistic in nature because ‘it is rather a communion of souls than an aggregate of individuals … Negro-African society puts stress on the group rather than on the individual, more on solidarity than on the activity and needs of the individual, more on the communion of persons than on their autonomy’ (pp. 49 and 93). The broken trust from the slave era has had its impact on why many Africans would prefer caution to complete trust. It is not a surprise that the results from world data show preference for caution than a complete trust. For example, data from the World Values Survey (Wave 6, 2010–2014) were collected from Algeria, Ghana, Libya, Morocco, Rwanda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tunisia and Egypt and showed a very high (83.2%) percentage of respondents who preferred caution as opposed to trust in people (15.3%). This finding is consistent across all ages of the respondents. According to Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994), caution is a reaction to the fear of being exploited by others. They also found that those low in trust were high in caution and that high trustors could be either high or low in caution. While caution

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are not the two opposites of trust, but can coexist with trust (Lewicki & Brinsfield, 2009) and have different effects on behavioural choices (Cho, 2006). Distrust is described as a psychological state that alerts or reminds individuals that an ‘other’ may have negative intentions (Posten & Mussweiler, 2013) or even a ‘propensity to attribute sinister intentions to, and a desire to buffer oneself from the effects of another’s conduct’ (Lewicki, McAllister, & Bies, 1998 p. 439). Some authors have suggested that being cautious or distrustful can actually be a form of adaptation (Schul, Mayo, & Burnstein, 2008) and can in fact lead to better and quality decisions (Larson, 2004; Lowry, Schuetzler, Giboney, & Gregor, 2015) and reduce cognitive biases (Mayo, 2015) and stereotyping (Larson, 2004). Idemudia, Kwantes, and Olasupo (2017) showed that social cynicism and tolerance for ambiguity – lifestyle factors of trust and caution – predicted generalized caution and generalized trust, which supported the claim that cynicism is related to distrust (Lewicki & Brinsfield, 2009). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report also shows that the level of trust people have for each other has a direct relationship with how cohesive a society is as a whole (OECD, 2016). The question that comes to mind is how well do Africans trust their governments and government agencies such as the police, the army and the judiciary? How about trust in workplaces? Studies of a significant majority of leaders in the 2016 survey of CEOs by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) showed that 55% believe that the low level of trust in the workplace predisposes their company to foundational threat (Craig, 2017) or that lack of trust constitutes a threat to any institution because trust means money (Zak & Knack, 2001). Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2019) also see trust as a fundamental element of social capital – a key contributor to sustaining well-being outcomes, including economic development. This study tried to draw a direct relationship between trust and global economic development. If people who trust make more money, then it is important for Africans of today to forget and forgive the perpetrators of slave trade and move forward by relearning how to trust for the sake of the development of the continent. African economies and health may ultimately thrive if trust is allowed to govern relationships in daily lives because trust remains an important social lubricant without which nothing is possible (Craig, 2017; Zak & Knack, 2001). Trust and trustworthiness continue to be the bedrock of homes  – between brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, husbands and wives and nation states.

Literature Review Trust and trustworthiness are central to human endeavours in cultures of developed, developing and underdeveloped societies. Trusting relationships are considered the foothold of civilization and society and a vital element in the attainment of human happiness (Haidt, 2006; Putnam, 2000). Algan and Cahuc (2010) argued that the economic backwardness in different regions of the world can be attributed to lack of mutual confidence and trust. Trust represents the hallmark of social capital and a

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critical component of physical, mental, social and economic well-being (Addai & Pokimica, 2012; Adjaye-Gbewonyo, Kawachi, Subramanian, & Avendano, 2018; Kawachi & Berkman, 2014). Trust fosters tolerance, voluntarism, charity donation, optimism, satisfaction with the government and patriotism towards the state through tax payment (Scholz & Lubell, 1998; Uslaner, 2002; Zmerli & Newton, 2008). In addition, trust has been shown to promote cooperation, prosocial behaviours and a sense of togetherness among individuals, ethnic groups and nations (Sonderskove, 2008). In all, trust is considered to be a foundation for building well-function societies (Dinesen, 2012). The overarching importance of trust and trustworthiness in human relations has necessitated research in understanding its nature, antecedents and consequences for many decades. A review of models of trust development by Dietz, Gillespie and Chao (2010) provided a summary of how trust develops between the trustee and the trustor. The trustor is the party who is exercising the act of trusting, while the trustee is the party who receives the trust. Trust is dependent on the group of evidence about the trustee’s character and motives, which necessitate faith judgement, belief or prediction of the trustees’ future behaviour by the trustor. In other words, building trust with the trustee is based on the initial judgement of the trustor about the trustworthiness of the trustee. Trustworthiness, in this sense, implies the ability, integrity and benevolence of the trustee. Further evidence for the trustworthiness of the trustee adds to the repertoire of the faith judgement in the trust relationship. If the trust in the trustee is justified and maintained, the trust relationship is further deepened and develops ‘thorough reinforcing cycles of reciprocated trust’ (Dietz et al., 2010). On the contrary, trust becomes eroded or distrust sets in when reciprocation is lacking. Hence, trust development is a dynamic and continuous process determined by reciprocation and the outcomes of a trust relationship. Dietz et  al. (2010) further noted that the quality and interpretation of evidence about trustee’s trustworthiness are important to the trust process. They distinguish between two bases for trust: direct evidence and presumptive evidence. Direct evidence originates from personal knowledge and interaction with the trustee. Often, this kind of evidence enables personalized trust. However, presumptive evidence comes from indirect knowledge of the trustee and depends on other evidence sources. These sources include information from third parties, membership of a social category, role expectations and institutions. Using evidences from these multiple sources, the trustor evaluates the trustworthiness of the trustee by acting as the ‘intuitive auditor of others’ trustworthiness’ (Kramer, cited in Dietz et al., 2010, p. 12). Evidence from presumptive sources could lead to generalized or social trust.

Models of Trust and Trustworthiness: The African Perspective The majority of existing theories and literature related to trust have their roots in Western cultures, with limited contributions from researchers from Africa and other world regions. The consequence of this skewedness is that the bulk of the current

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studies on trust assume an etic perspective (Zaheer & Zaheer, 2006). As noted by Dietz et al. (2010), this approach makes researchers presume that concepts, m ­ easures and models of trust originating from the Western world are also applicable in other continental, national and local cultures. It is true that all humans, whatever region they are from, have several attributes in common (etic). However, it is also recognized that there are many conditions (e.g. culture) that make different groups of humans different from each other (emic). This implies that factors responsible for shaping trust or distrust in Europe or America may or may not actually be the same in Africa. Hence, it becomes more meaningful if we approach the understanding of trust and trustworthiness from an African perspective and examine its intersections with as well as departures from the Western notions of trust.

The Cultural and the Experiential Perspective on Trust Generalized trust – the idea that most people can be trusted without having prior information about who they are – has been at least viewed from two angles: cultural and experiential perspectives (Uslaner, 2008). While the cultural perspective views trust as a stable trait distributed from one generation to the other via parental socialization, the experiential perspective underscores the importance of learning and views trust to be changing as we navigate through the environment (Dinesen, 2012). To the cultural perspective, trust is an ‘inheritable’ characteristic learnt early in life from parents, which remains relatively stable throughout the life course and is hardly amenable to change. In this sense, trust is stable and enduring because it is continually transmitted from one generation to the next via enculturation and socialization. However, from the experiential perspective, trust is experienced-­based and constantly undergoes changes when one interacts with others within communities and societies (Dinesen & Hooghe, 2010; Uslaner, 2008). The cultural perspective is compatible with the persistence model (Glenn, 1974, 1980). This view posits that social and political attitudes are predicted by ‘the residues of preadult learning’ and ‘persist throughout life’ (Sears & Levy, 2003, p. 78) and is relatively impervious to alteration in later life (Sears, 1990), whereas the experiential perspective aligns with the lifelong openness model (Brim & Kagan, 1980). This view emphasizes that individual attitudes remain open to changes throughout the life course and, thus, continue to experience variation and development until adulthood and old age (Sears & Levey, 2003). Buttressing the relevance of the experiential perspective, Dinesen (2012) established that parental transmission of trust to children of immigrants and native-born Danes is weak and less important as compared to trust derived from the fairness of government and state institutions, which is experiential. This finding emphasizes the pre-eminence of the experiential perspective over the cultural perspective since the cultural transmission of trust via parental socialization was less influential compared to trust derived through other sources such as fairness of state and government institutions. In addition, it was shown that country destination context was impact-

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ful on the trust of immigrants as they reported higher levels of trust than their counterparts in their countries of origin. This implies that the experiential perspective better accounts for the origin of trust compared to the cultural perspective in this sample. Given that human behaviours and attitudes are generally shaped by both traits and environmental factors, we approach our understanding of the origin of trust and trustworthiness from an African perspective by examining those cultural and environmental models that may explain the aetiology of trust/mistrust among Africans as exemplified majorly in the World Values Survey.

 frican Communitarianism, Colonization, Slave Trade A and Distrust Before the colonial scramble for Africa by Western European powers in the periods between 1881 and 1914 (‘Scramble for Africa’, n.d.), Africans lived in communities and kingdoms. Communitarianism, which is defined as ‘social organization in small, cooperative, partially collectivist communities’ (New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, 2019), was the basis of African philosophy before the advent of the Europeans. Africans lived in an atmosphere of cultural kinship and affinity where personhood was defined in terms of affiliation to the community. In this sense, the community does not exist because you exist, but you exist because of the community. As Eze (2008) puts it, ‘a person’s humanity is dependent on the appreciation, preservation and affirmation of other persons’ humanity. To deny another’s humanity is to depreciate my own humanity’ (p. 2). In essence, the existence of individuals depends on others within the community since ‘I am, because we are and since we are therefore I am’ (Mbiti, 1969, p. 109). The African value system is based on the Ubuntu philosophy, which emphasizes consensus and solidarity in interpersonal relationships within the community (Ramose, 1999). Everybody is carried along without leaving anyone behind. The precolonial African culture inculcated trust, respect, compassion, pride, interdependence and collective success over individual success (Kanu, 2010; Luhabe, 2002; Mbigi & Maree, 2005). At the present, the culture of trust is lost in Africa and has become a ‘place of low social trust’ (Burbidge, 2019). Badru (2012) noted that the loss of the African traditional communal values endangered mistrust among the people. Kakonge (2017) also maintained that the traditional cultural value system of trust that characterized the African people has been weakened or eroded and is mainly a consequence of colonization. To him, the consequence of colonization has not been as profound on any other African value than it has been on trust. As noted in the introductory section, Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) demonstrated that events surrounding the slave trade era were the origins of mistrust in Africa. According to the authors, the mechanisms of impact of slave trade on trust were erosion of cultural beliefs, values and norms (Nunn & Wantchekon, 2011). Besides altering cultural norms, values and beliefs, which are internal to the individual,

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slave trade also led to the long-term collapse of external factors, which included political and legal institutions put in place before the colonial era. As a result, indigenes of regions heavily exposed to slave trade became unruly and easily cheated and tricked by fellow community members. However, Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) established that the effects of the internal channels (i.e. alteration of cultural beliefs and values) on trust were at least twice the effects of external paths on trust (i.e. deterioration of legal and domestic institutions). Given these facts, Africans may be less trusting today because they have come to learn that others are not trustworthy. These reflect a change from a communal culture of trust to an individual culture of mistrust. A significant question then arises: what factors account for the persistence of distrust among Africans 100 years after the abolition of the slave trade? According to Tabellini’s (2008) model, individuals make political choices that determine the quality of domestic institutions through norms of corporation inherited from parents. Using this model, Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) explained that the persistence of distrust is an aftermath of generational change in norm of cooperation. This tendency further led to a generational desire for weak domestic institutions, which in turn perpetuate more distrust among people towards these institutions. The whole situation presents a vicious cycle of distrust where people who are less trusting choose domestic institutions that are also distrusting. The acts of distrust by these institutions in the governing of state affairs additionally increase the behaviours of distrust among the people. Alternatively, distrust persists because indigenous people who were more trusting were captured and shipped as slaves outside of Africa, leaving a majority of distrustful people on the continent to perpetuate more distrustful behaviours (Nunn & Wantchekon, 2011). These findings confirm both the cultural and experiential perspectives of trust. A change in factors internal to the individual that include cultural norms and values (cultural perspective) and individual external factors such as domestic and political institution (experiential perspective) has a significant effect on trust among the African people. Given the findings of Nunn and Wantchekon (2011), understanding trust from an African perspective may be more informative using the cultural perspective rather than the experiential perspective. Tedeschi (2018) corroborated the notion that beliefs transmitted through generations have a significant impact on trust in Africa. The author established that ethnic groups that had precolonial statehood show significant higher levels of trust in modern-day political and governmental institutions. However, this idea seems to contradict Dinesen’s (2012) results where the experiential perspective was found to explain the origin of trust in a Danish sample.

Ethnic Diversity and Homogeneity, Fairness and Trust Research has indicated that countries with high cultural diversity tend to experience lower levels of trust (Klasing & Beugelsdijk, 2014). Trust and trustworthiness thrive well in homogeneous societies compared to heterogeneous ones. Using data

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obtained from 60 countries with a majority of respondents from the Americas, Europe and Asia, Delhey and Newton (2005) concluded that ethnic homogeneity forms the basis of trust through equality, national wealth and good government. These findings were used to confirm the social-psychological belief congruency which argues that it is a natural disposition for individuals to socialize, associate and be comfortable with other people who share similar beliefs and aspirations (Rokeach, Smith, & Evans, 1960). In this regard, there would be favourable evaluations of similar groups than dissimilar groups. Likewise, the more similar people are, the more they are likely to trust each other, while the more the dissimilarity, the more the distrust (Delhey & Newton, 2005; Glaeser, Laibson, Scheinkman, & Soutter, 2000). This finding has also been confirmed in other related studies (e.g., Alesina & La Ferrara, 2002; Putnam, 2007). The association of societal homogeneity with trust has implication for the multi-­ ethnic nature of African societies. Given that Africa consists of several tribes at national, state and local region levels, it may be concluded that the low level of trust in the continent is owing to its multi-ethnic nature. However, a recent study by Robinson (2017) provided mixed findings in the relationship between ethnic diversity and trust in samples from different African countries. His study showed that the negative association between ethnic diversity and trust was observed at the national level while trust was positively related to ethnic diversity at the local level. Invariably, he emphasized that trust is higher among co-ethnics but lower in non-co-ethnics, especially when the level of segregation is high. This finding seems to confirm contact theory, which states that the more opposing social groups have contact with each other, the more they are likely to overcome negative stereotypes and experience reduction in antagonistic behaviours towards each other. We may infer that greater trust among individuals and co-ethnics is a consequence of frequent interactions, whereas distrust among individuals and non-co-ethnics is because of segregation and lack of familiarity. Nevertheless, You (2012) seems to challenge the finding that ethnic diversity has negative implications for trust. Using data from the European Values Study and the World Values Survey of 80 countries (inclusive of a few African nations) with 170,000 respondents, You found that country variations in level of social trust are more adequately explained and accounted for by the notion of ‘fairness,’ particularly in terms of unbiased income distribution, effective democracy and freedom from corruption. However, factors like cultural/ethnic fractionalization and level of economic development were found to be insignificant after controlling for the influence of fairness in terms of inequality and corruption. He maintained that the level of poverty or per capita income does not actually influence propensity of trust but the fairness in the distribution of income. These findings corroborate the findings in a study by Begue (2002) that found a positive association between people’s ‘belief in a just world’ and interpersonal trust. Trustworthiness is encouraged when institutional frameworks condemn and penalize the offender while rewarding and praising those who show honesty. As trustwor-

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thiness improves, there will be a net increase in trust. You (2012) argued that stronger norms of trustworthiness are produced when societies are fair in distributive (income distribution), formal (corruption) and procedural (democracy) justice. The fairness model can contribute significantly to the understanding of low levels of trust in Africa. For example, data from the 2018 corruption index reveals that more than 85% of countries in the African Union were below the world’s average corruption index score (Transparency International, 2018). According to a United Nations Development Programme (2017) report, ten sub-Saharan African countries were classified among 19 countries with the most unequal income distribution globally. In addition, out of the 44 sub-Saharan nation’s survey for democracy index, 50% were rated as authoritarian, 32% were hybrid regimes, 16% had flawed democracy, while only 2% was considered to practice full democracy (The Economist, 2019). This means that only 2% of sub-Saharan African countries practice true democracy. These data show that corruption, income and poor democratic institutions remain critical challenges to formal, distributive and procedural justice in Africa. Hence, it is no surprise that there are lower levels of trust within the African continent. This seems largely corroborative of You’s (2012) argument that lack of fairness forms the primary basis of low levels of trust among the African people. Consistent with You’s findings, Addai, Opoku-Agyeman and Ghartey (2013) also identified a sense of corruption and unfair treatment as a reason for institutional distrust among Ghanaians using data from the 2008 Afrobarometer survey. In politically and economically weak African states, trustworthiness hardly survives, but the opposite is true of effective states (Güemes & Herreros, 2018). Sapsford, Tsourapas, Abbott, and Teti (2019) reiterated that government and business corruptions provoke anger in citizens of Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and these occurrences have reduced their trust in fellow citizens, governments and its institution. The fairness model seems to confirm the experiential perspective of trust. This means that factors external to the individual engender distrust among people. It can be implied that if the culture of corruption and unfairness can be overcome in Africa, then trust within the continent will increase. According to Nunn and Wantchekon (2011), the erosion of traditional cultural values, beliefs and norms via the impact of the slave trade led to the collapse of political and domestic institutions which further promoted corruption, unfairness and ultimately distrust. Given this view, we are of the opinion that a lack of fairness in income distribution, corruption and injustice that mar the African continent may be effaced through a return to the traditional African values of communalism that emphasize a partially collectivist and cooperative culture. Thus, a return to communalism will strengthen both political and domestic institutions, which will further reduce corruption and unfairness, and eventually increase trust and trustworthiness. The focal point of intervention is a cognitive restructuring of the mind of the people to assimilate traditional African values in order to increase trust levels. Figure 3.1 presents a diagrammatic illustration of a model to increase trust and trustworthiness in Africa.

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E. S. Idemudia and B. D. Olawa Strengthening of domestic and political institutions Increased trust and trustworthiness

Return to Communalism Reduced corruption and unfairness

Fig. 3.1  A proposed model to increase trust and trustworthiness within the African context

The Importance of Trust in Specific Life Domains Several studies have shown that trust and trustworthiness affect different facets of the social, political and economic lives of Africans. Addai and Pokimica (2012) suggest that material deprivations are associated with different forms of trust among Ghanaians. Specifically, institutional trust (i.e. trust in the presidency, parliament, court and the police) predicted material deprivation in different ways. For example, low level of trust in the presidency uniquely predicted the inadequacies of water, income and healthcare, whereas low trust levels in the parliament, court and the police predicted food, water and income deprivations, respectively. Overall, findings show that institutional trust was stronger in predicting material deprivations compared to interpersonal trust (i.e. trust in fellow Ghanaians). Trust has also been shown to be important in the educational sector. Le Grange (2003) showed that the cooperation of South African academics with their counterparts from Australia in a project to develop a higher-education framework was achieved based on a renewed social organization of trust, notwithstanding that South African participants showed distrust at the initial phase of the project. This study emphasized how the culture of distrust between blacks and whites has experienced changes in the post-apartheid South Africa. Also using a South African sample, Adjaye-Gbewonyo et al. (2018) found trust to be associated with mental well-being. Surprisingly, they established that trust at the individual level was associated with more depressive symptoms, while at the communal level, trust did not form any association depression. This may suggest that trusting others in a distrusting environment may lead to disappointments and then depression. Utilizing the Afrobarometer data gathered in 2002 and 2003, Breen and Gillanders (2015) reported that political trust was associated with peoples’ rating of international economic organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Further, Diallo and Thuillier (2004) found trust between coordinator and task manager to be more effective for success compared to team cohesion in an international development project carried out in Africa.

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In an economic experiment carried out in South Africa, Carter and Castillo (2011), showed that trustworthiness (together with altruism) significantly predicted substantial increases in living standard and economic well-being. There was still a net increase in economic well-being, even after controlling for the effect of altruism. In addition, by comparing the two South African hospitals in levels of organizational trust, Erasmus, Gilson, Govender, and Nkosi (2017) indicated that a hospital environment with high organizational trust exemplified by communicating the truth in negotiation, keeping promises, and not deceiving others was more open in the communication and implementation of patients’ right charter. In a thematic analysis of nine qualitative studies in sub-Saharan Africa, Østergaard (2015) reported that trust is vital for effective relationships between healthcare providers and clients. Trust enhances the quality of the health sector and leads to an increase in demand for healthcare service. Trust is also evidenced to be important in religious circles. Manglos-Weber (2017) demonstrated a connection between generalized trust and religious membership using a sample from sub-Saharan Africa. However, the author found membership in charismatic evangelical churches to be associated with lower levels of generalized trust. Examining the sources of the problems in oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Oyefusi (2009) argued that the root cause of the conflicts between the host communities and extraction companies lies in the collapse of trust and recommended building of trusting relationships among conflicting parties. Among selected personnel of some agricultural development programmes in Nigeria, Ladebo (2006) showed that cognitive and affective trust in management was positively related to group cohesion while group cohesion was negatively associated with intention to quit the programme. These findings suggest that employees’ trust in management may increase positive interactions in the workplace and willingness to stay in the organization. In a similar study carried out in South Africa, Popoola and Chinomona (2017) empirically demonstrated that trust had a positive impact on ethical behaviours among university employees. Fjeldstad (2004) also investigated factors responsible for citizens’ non-payment of service charges to South African local authorities. He argued that non-payment was related to neither the ‘culture of entitlement’ nor inability to pay but a lack of trust in authorities to use revenue generated to improve services to the people, lack of trust in procedures used for revenue collection and lack of trust in fellow citizens to make their own service payment. Although these studies have demonstrated the importance of trust in sectors such as education, religious, business, health and general population, more studies are needed to understand the role of trust in voting pattern and political choice, peacebuilding and economic prosperity within the African region.

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Summary Trust and trustworthiness from an African perspective imply ‘dependability,’ ‘hope,’ ‘expectation,’ ‘faith,’ ‘dependence,’ and ‘reliance,’ on others with the expectation that the person will behave responsibly (i.e., demonstrate trustworthiness). This dependence or hope and expectation are also found in the conceptual definition of trust by Bauer (2017). Unfortunately, theoretical accounts of Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) show that the slave trade and postcolonial atrocities have eroded trust among Africans. In this chapter, the theoretical accounts of distrust in Africa that include ethnic diversities, corruption and unfair democracy were conceived as the seeds of discord sown during the slave trade era. Invariably, unfairness, corruption and ethnic divisions, which are often considered as causes of distrust in Africa, may be the aftermath of distrust, originating from colonialism and slave trade, rather than the cause. Colonial legacies also include preferences of one ethnic tribe over another in country’s political arenas (like the case of Rwanda by the French and Nigeria by the British) which bring about disunity and pit one ethnic group against another, thereby perpetuating distrust among Africans. A typical example of this division and distrust is clearly evident in the manifestation of xenophobia or Afroxenoglossophobia (Idemudia, 2018) in South Africa. However, it is hoped that Africans will look inwards, work among themselves and learn to understand that mistrust/distrust came from the legacy of the encounters with the west, and subsequently, there is need to revive the African cultural values that promote trust and trustworthiness in general. For example, the Ubuntu (‘I am because we are’) philosophy which believes in a universal bond of sharing of trust that connects humanity should be the framework of connecting one another. It is also recommended that more studies be carried out in Africa particularly on the causes or factors predicting trust and understanding the dynamics of trustworthiness among different segments of the population.

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Erhabor Idemudia  is formerly the Head and Subject Chair, Department of Psychology, NorthWest University, South Africa, and currently a tenured Full Professor of Research-Social Science Cluster in the Faculty of Humanities. His educational background includes a BSc with Honors in Psychology and MSc and PhD in Clinical Psychology. An NRF Established Rated Scientist in South Africa and a recipient of the Georg-Forster Lifetime Achievement Award in Research for senior professors, Germany. He is a Humboldtian; Leventis Fellow, UK; Salzburg Fellow, Austria; a Phodiso-UCLA Fellow and Advisor, USA, among others. He is currently the General-Secretary and Registrar of Membership – World Council for Psychotherapy – African Chapter, and Board Member, WCP, Austria. He is Associate Editor (AE) of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, South Africa, and AE, Heliyon (Netherlands). Research contributions to science are anchored on two domains: (1) applied research in psychopathology and interventions with vulnerable populations such as migrants/refugees and IDPs and (2) cultural aspects of African-oriented psychology and illness attributions. Prof. Idemudia has over 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books of wide readership. He is a Fellow of World Council for Psychotherapy, Austria, Nigerian Psychology Association, and Nigerian Association of Clinical Psychologists. He is the author (with Klaus Boehnke) “I’m an Alien in Deutschland: A Quantitative Mental Health Case Study of African Immigrants in Germany.” Batatola Olawa  is a lecturer and clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychology, Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria. He holds a BSc in Psychology and an MSc and a PhD in Clinical Psychology. He was a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow in Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Lifestyle Diseases Mafikeng, Faculty of Health Sciences, North-West University, South Africa. His research focuses on mental health and well-being in adulthood and later-life.

Chapter 4

Trust in the Taiwanese Context Arief Kartolo and Ben C. H. Kuo

Abstract  Trust has been defined as the mutual and exchange of confidence between parties, established through expectations of good intentions and reasonable competence and with the expectation that no party will exploit the vulnerabilities of the other. It has been described as the glue that holds and smooths the process of societal functions, such as the development of interpersonal or economic relationships. Research has demonstrated the impact of culture and societal norms on the formulation, development and maintenance of trust. For example, research has demonstrated the impact of Confucianism, as well as the importance of the concept of guanxi, on the construction of trust in East Asian countries. This chapter will first introduce and discuss the cultural influences of Confucianism and guanxi, along with their impact on the formulation, development and maintenance of trust in Taiwan. Furthermore, this chapter will illustrate how trust is manifested in general, as well as trust in specific relationships and referent points in Taiwan. Finally, this chapter will discuss the implications and applications of trust research in a crosscultural context. Keywords  Trust · Trustworthiness · Taiwan · Guanxi · Societal culture

Trust has been defined as the mutual and exchange of confidence between parties, established through expectations of good intentions and reasonable competence and with the expectation that no party will exploit the vulnerabilities of the other (Sabel, 1993; Mayer et al., 1995). It has been described as the glue that holds and smooths the process of societal functions, such as the development of interpersonal or economic relationships (Ferguson & Peterson, 2015; Ward et al., 2014). Research has demonstrated the impact of culture and societal norms on the formulation, ­development and maintenance of trust. For example, research has demonstrated the impact of Confucianism, as well as the importance of the concept of guanxi, on the A. Kartolo () · B. C. H. Kuo University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7_4

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construction of trust in East Asian countries (e.g. Hu, 2007; Tan & Tambyah, 2011; Ward et al., 2014). This chapter will first introduce and discuss the cultural influences of Confucianism and guanxi, along with their impact on the formulation, development and maintenance of trust in Taiwan. Furthermore, this chapter will illustrate how trust is manifested in general, as well as trust in specific relationships and referent points in Taiwan. Finally, this chapter will discuss the implications and applications of trust research in a cross-cultural context.

Cultural Background of Taiwan Confucianism The cultures of many East Asian countries, including Taiwan, China, Japan and Korea, are deeply rooted in the philosophical teachings of Confucius, known as Confucianism (Hofstede & Bond, 1998). The teachings of Confucianism originated in China, focus on various aspects of personal lives and are adopted as the guide for setting pragmatic rules governing the social roles and behaviours of individuals in relation to others and within a society. That is, Confucianism is the culmination of philosophical lessons and is established as practical ethics through moral, political and social teachings in many East Asian countries, including Taiwan. Hofstede and Bond (1998) summarized the teachings of Confucianism with four key principles. The first principle focuses on stability in society through the emphasis of specific but unequal distributions of relationships, known as Wu Lun (五論) or five cardinal relationships. The five cardinal relationships include a ruler and his/her subject, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother and friend and friend. The stability of society is established through mutual and reciprocal role obligations, such that the junior partner displays respect and obedience while the senior partner provides teaching and protection (Fu & Tsui, 2003). The teachings of Wu Lun place an emphasis on hierarchical and familial collectivism (Ip, 2009). That is, four of the five relationships pertain to the hierarchical nature of interactions between the junior and senior partner in the relationship, and three of these five relationships pertain specifically to familial roles with respect to marital relationship, parenthood and siblinghood. Deriving from the doctrine of Wu Lun, the second Confucian principle focuses on the maintenance of harmony through the understanding of social organizations. According to this principle, a person is not perceived as an individual first, but rather, an individual is defined first and foremost by his/her belongingness to specific groups and connection to others through specific networks of social relations (Wang et al., 2005). Confucianism asserts that any action of an individual is reflective of the social network to which the individual belongs. In other words, the ­maintenance of harmony is achieved through both the de-emphasis of one’s individuality and the emphasis of the importance of the ‘collective self’. Further to that, the third principle of Wu Lun focuses on the reciprocation of relationships.

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Specifically, Confucianism follows the rule of equity, such that one should treat others with the same level of benevolence as one would like to be treated by others (Fu & Tsui, 2003; Hofstede & Bond, 1998). Having received kind treatment from others, one should return the favour to avoid ‘losing face’ and not being perceived as untrustworthy (Wang et al., 2005). The term ‘losing face’ is derived directly from the Chinese language, such that losing dignity, self-respect and prestige of oneself are equivalent to throwing away the physical features of the face, such as one’s eyes, nose and mouth (Hofstede & Bond, 1998). The fourth principle focuses on the mastery and handling of oneself through continuous improvement and perseverance, emphasizing the virtue of patience, perseverance and moderation in all aspects of life. Overindulgence and conspicuous consumption are not encouraged or accepted, neither are risk-taking behaviours nor losing one’s temper, as they can be perceived as posing challenges to the group’s interest and threatening the group’s harmony (Fu & Tsui, 2003; Liu, Meng, & Wang, 2014). Extracted from those teachings, Confucian ethics is represented with five virtues: ren, yi, li, zhi and xin (Wang et al., 2005; Ip, 2009). Ren (仁) is the foundation of all virtues, which represents moral capacity, reflecting the compassion and benevolence towards humanity that is entrenched within the teachings of Confucianism (Ip, 2009). Yi (義) represents the sense of moral rightness, reflecting the capacity to recognize appropriateness and to differentiate the right from the wrong in behavioural, relational and other humanistic aspects of life. Li (禮) represents propriety, reflecting the gravity of etiquettes, norms and societal protocols in navigating one’s personal and institutional lives (Ip, 2009). Zhi (智) represents wisdom, reflecting the importance of continuous improvement and character building committed throughout one’s lifetime (Berling, 1982). Xin (信) represents trustworthiness, reflecting the weight of commitment and the importance of consistency between one’s words and actions (Wee, 2011).

Xin and Trust Xin (信), or trustworthiness, is one of the five virtues of Confucianism. However, the concept of trust derived from Confucian ethics, xin, is not directly equivalent to the conception of trust that is understood in the Western context (Koehn, 2001; Wee, 2011). The Chinese character xin (信) is a compound of the character ‘person’ (人) on the left, accompanied by ‘word’ (言) on the right. The word xin itself denotes the quality of ‘reliability,’ ‘loyalty,’ and ‘faithfulness’ of a person. One of the main differences between the conception of Confucian xin and Western understanding of trust lies in the relationship between xin, trust and morality (Wee, 2011). On the one hand, viewing through the Western lens, a trustworthy person is perceived as having high morality that is manifested in the forms of ability, benevolence and integrity (Mayer et al., 1995). Trust between two parties is established when both parties are willing to show vulnerability to the other, with the assumption and expectation of good will and upright morality between the trustor and the trustee. As such, Wee

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(2011) argued that morality is an integral aspect of trust in the Western literature. On the other hand, Wee (2011) reviewed and analyzed Confucius’ Analects and concluded that the conception of xin, or trust in Confucian ethics, is not bounded with the expectations of good will or morality. Rather, according to the Analects, a person of xin does not necessarily have to be moral, but the conception of xin provides the foundation for the development of morality. However, the Analects also asserted that a person with xin cannot be completely immoral, such that a person of xin must possess the capacity to reflect and evaluate what is appropriate from inappropriate in given contexts (Koehn, 2001) and use such reflections and evaluations as the basis for personal development for future actions. Another major difference between Confucian xin and the Western approach of trust is in the attribution of trusting behaviour (Koehn, 2001). The attribution of trust is focused on characteristics of a person in the Western perspective, whereas in the Confucian perspective, the contextual factors are often emphasized and taken into consideration in the formulation of xin. For example, when the trustor fails to meet the expectations of the trustee, it is justified for the trustor to be labelled with betrayal in the Western context. However, the same action labelled as ‘betrayal’ may be assessed differently in Confucian ethics, as the emphasis would be placed on the context and the situation in which the action takes place (Koehn, 2001). When Person A is late for an important meeting, for example, Person B – who is entrenched within the Western culture – is likely to attribute this late behaviour to Person A’s disposition; as such, Person B would label Person A as an untrustworthy person who betrays the temporal trust that is established for the meeting. Person C – who is well versed in the teachings of Confucian ethics – on the other hand, is likely to attribute Person A’s behaviour as influenced by the environmental surroundings; as such, Person C would consider contextual factors (e.g. traffic) when evaluating Person A and still deem Person A as reliable and trustworthy for future meetings. It should be noted that this contextual emphasis in Confucian societies may only be applicable for in-group members or to those who have established a relationship with the trustor (Kartolo et  al., 2016). However, further exploration in this area is needed to investigate the functional differences of trust between in-group and out-group relationships, especially for Confucian-influenced societies that are biased in favour of in-group bonds. As mentioned earlier, one of the most significant aspects of xin is reflected in its written character with a combination of the character of ‘person’ (人) and ‘word’ ( 言). The concept of xin is tied to the relationship between a person and his or her word, such that a person of xin is a person who abides by her or his words or explicit verbal commitment. Wee (2011) argued that xin can be established without morality, as long as the person of xin behaves in a completely transparent and consistent manner. Accordingly, the quality of ‘trust’ is likely to be established and assigned to an individual if the person is able to ‘keep their word’. Hence, the concept of xin emphasizes the eminence of explicit verbal commitment, whereas the concept of trust in the Western lens does not place equivalent importance in explicit verbal commitment. For example, it is noted that organizations in Confucian-influenced countries (i.e. Taiwan, China, Japan) dislike the use of legal contracts in business

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dealings (Wang et al., 2005), because the specificities of legal contracts are viewed as superseding the relationship established between the parties involved (Koehn, 2001).

Confucianism in Taiwan According to the Chinese Value Survey (Chinese Culture Connection, 1987), Taiwan was ranked second in Confucian dynamism out of the 22 countries involved in the study, with only Hong Kong scoring higher. Oh (1991) and Hofstede and Bond (1998) argued that Taiwan, along with Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore – collectively known as the ‘Five Dragons’ – was able to exhibit a miraculous growth in economy over the past decades due to the societal emphasis on Confucian values. For example, one of the teachings of Confucian ethics focuses on ‘having a sense of shame.’ This sense of shame in turn can lead to a stronger emphasis and a higher sensitivity towards social contracts, which facilitated business dealings that were reflected in the economic growth of the Five Dragons. Additionally, Confucian ethics also emphasizes the value of ‘thriftines,’ which was manifested through increased savings, leading to higher capabilities for capital investments and reinvestments that facilitated the economic growth. The value of ‘persistence’ and ‘perseverance’ also helped in the promotion of economic growth for the Five Dragons, as those values were translated into tenacity for attaining reasonable economic goals. However, some have also noted that few of the Confucian teachings should have impeded the economic growth of the Five Dragons. For instance, the focus on ‘respect for tradition’ should have impeded and discouraged innovation. However, to the contrary, it was observed that the Five Dragons were able to move forward by accepting and adopting Western technology and innovations (Oh, 1991; Hofstede & Bond, 1998). Clearly, while the teachings of Confucian ethics played a significant role in the rapid growth of economy for the Five Dragons, culture cannot be the only factor contributing to this economic miracle. The nature and the existence of a market and the appropriate political context in these societies are clearly an additional consideration. The teachings of Confucian ethics are still very relevant in Taiwan (Lee, 2017; Liu et al., 2014; Jhang, 2018; Yeh & Xu, 2010). For example, Liu and colleagues (2014) experimentally tested the impact of Confucianism on time preferences and trusting behaviour using an investment game with Taiwanese participants. Results suggested Taiwanese participants who were primed with Confucian ethics by completing six classic texts from the Analects became significantly less present-biased and displayed more trust in comparison to those who were not primed with Confucianism. Lee (2017) conducted a qualitative study to investigate how the teachings of Confucian ethics impacted the repeated occurrences of match-fixing scandals (i.e. five cases) in professional baseball in Taiwan between 1997 and 2010. Results suggested the concept of Wu Lun, with its emphasis on hierarchy, played a large role contributing to those scandals. Players avoided confronting their coaches

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and other authority figures while displaying obedience to power figures, allowing corruption and match fixing to occur repetitively in the Taiwanese professional baseball league. Thus, it is evident that the teachings of Confucian ethics are still a prominent cultural force in Taiwan today and are still shaping social interactions and relationships, interpersonally as well as within organization.

Guanxi The concept of guanxi (關係) is also deeply rooted in the teachings of Confucianism (Ambler, Styles, & Wang, 1999). Guanxi refers to interpersonal relationships that are constructed to facilitate the exchange of personal relations and resources (Ambler et al., 1999; Luo, 1997; Shou, Guo, Zhang, & Shu, 2011). Within Chinese social relationships, the interpersonal bonds of guanxi are established through the understanding of implicit mutual obligation between the parties, as well as reciprocated expectations and confidence in one another. It governs the attitudes to conducting long-term relationships, in the context of both social and business relationships. The word guanxi is made up of two characters: guan and xi. Guan ( 關) is derived from the character men (門) or door; on its own, the word guan means to close up. The word Xi (係), however, means to tie up, to bind to or to connect to  – which primarily refers to individuals and their ties or relationships. Taken together, Guanxi metaphorically describes a closed-door relationship, such that those who are inside the closed door are recognized as ‘one of us’ whereas those who are on the other side of the door are recognized as ‘others’ (Luo, 1997). The conceptualization of guanxi involves the exchange of renqing (favours; 人 情) and the protection of mianzi (‘face’; 面子) (Hwang, 1987; Luo, 1997). On one hand, the term renqing refers to social and humanized obligations (Luo, 1997) that are defined with three different layers of meanings (Hwang, 1987). First, renqing is associated with an individual’s emotional responses when confronted with various situations in daily life, and a person possessing renqing is well equipped with empathy for the other person (Hwang, 1987). That is, a person with renqing is able to understand the feelings and emotional responses of others in a variety of contexts. Second, renqing is a form of resource that an individual can use, as a ‘gift’ (or favour), to offer to another individual in a social exchange (Hwang, 1987). When an individual offers a gift or assistance to a friend to celebrate happy occasions or to sympathize with difficult situations, it is an act of renqing – or it is said that the individual is ‘sending renqing’. Third, renqing is underpinned with a set of social norms, such as the norms of reciprocity and forgiveness, in order to maintain interpersonal harmony between parties (Hwang, 1987). For example, an act of renqing can be as simple as leaving a bigger tip at your frequent restaurant, with the expectation that renqing will be reciprocated in your next visits, whether it be through other nonmonetary means such as being seated at a better table or being treated with a higher degree of hospitality.

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However, the term mianzi refers to a person’s positive image or prestige in a social and relational context (Hwang, 1987; Shou et al., 2011). It is obtained by successfully performing specific social obligations and by impression management. The goal of gaining mianzi is to project a particular and favourable image of oneself to others. Hwang (1987) further explained the framework of mianzi with the metaphor of a stage play. Mianzi is described as front-stage behaviour, the performance that is deliberately showcased in front of an audience. In this case, the audience refers to specific social circles for which one has frequent interactions but cannot be fully comfortable or display authentic behaviours (e.g. relatives, neighbours, colleagues; Hwang, 1987). Backstage behaviour, however, refers to authentic behaviour in which mianzi becomes less of a concern, and this backstage authentic behaviour can only be revealed to in-group members, such as family and close friends. In short, guanxi is essentially a network of interpersonal bonds that are developed and maintained through relational and reciprocated efforts in renqing, as well as with appropriate impression management and affective investment – mianzi.

Guanxi and Trust The concept of guanxi requires the maintenance of mianzi (‘face’) and the reciprocation of renqing (favours), along with affective investment and establishment of social and interpersonal bonds. As a result, studies have shown that relationships established as guanxi in Confucian societies (i.e. Taiwan, Japan, Korea) are perceived as relationships that would be expected to occur with in-group members, thus fostering trust between parties. This association between guanxi and trust is especially prevalent in business relations and marketing literature, where substantial empirical support exists for the association. For example, Lee and Dawes (2005) found the importance and intricacy of guanxi in establishing trust between salespersons and buyers and between suppliers and buying firms. Affective components of guanxi are emphasized in the formulation of long-term trust at the personal level in the business context, and this long-term-oriented personal trust between the buyer and the seller is transferred to the organizational level, becoming the building blocks and foundation of organizational trust within Confucian societies. Of course, expertise and technical components of the business relationship are crucial to formulating trust between organizations, but research has supported the criticality of guanxi in formulating trust between persons involved in business dealings in Confucian societies  – and not necessarily in Western societies (e.g. Ambler et  al., 1999; Lee & Dawes, 2005; Shou et  al., 2011). Indeed, as one Hong Kong executive stated, ‘People are more loyal to people than to an organization’ (Reddings, 1990, p. 166), emphasizing the importance of interpersonal bonds for fostering effective organizational interactions. In addition to empirical support for the importance of guanxi for interorganizational dealings, research has also supported the magnitude of guanxi for intraorga-

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nizational relationships. For instance, Farh, Tsui, Xin, and Cheng (1998) conducted two studies to assess the impact of guanxi on trust across vertical and horizontal dyads. In one of their studies, Farh et al. (1998) administered quantitative surveys to 792 employee-supervisor dyads (vertical dyads) in Taiwan to assess the impact of relational demography and guanxi on supervisor trust, subordinate performance and commitment. Guanxi was measured based on eight particularistic ties, including ties based on sharing former relationships (i.e. former classmates, former colleague, former teacher/student, former boss/subordinate, former neighbours) and sharing of last names and birthplace origins. Results suggested relational demography – especially similarities in education – has significant impact on both subordinate trust of the supervisor and supervisor rating on subordinate performance level. Guanxi based on relative and former neighbour or regional ties, however, demonstrated a significant impact on subordinate trust towards the supervisor. Farh et  al. (1998) also conducted interviews with 32 executives from China to further investigate the impact of guanxi in executive-executive dyads (horizontal dyads). Results of this study suggested guanxi (i.e. ties based on same birthplace origin, former classmates or relatives) significantly impacted the development of trust in a horizontal dyadic relationship. Thus, without a doubt, Confucianism – especially its teachings in the concept of guanxi – is associated with the formulation and maintenance of trust in East Asian cultures, including Taiwan.

Trust in Taiwan This following section outlines how trust is manifested generally in Taiwan. In addition to general trust, this section also provides insights into how trust is developed and maintained over variety of specific contexts, including trust in interpersonal, organizational and political relationships.

General Trust Generally, people in Taiwan have exhibited lower levels of trust compared to other societies. According to Wave 3 of the World Values Survey (1995–1999), only 36.9% of the Taiwanese respondents indicated that most people can be trusted, while 59.7% of the respondents suggested that one should be cautious when dealing with people. This pattern of low general trust and high caution is also reflected in more recent studies conducted in Confucian societies. For example, Tan and Tambyah (2011) investigated levels of general trust in several Confucian societies and found Taiwan to be among the Confucian societies that have very low propensity to trust and low levels of generalized trust. This pattern was also found in a study involving 39 different societies, where Thomson et al. (2018) explored the effects of relational mobility across cultures on subsequent psychosocial behav-

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iours, including general trust. Relational mobility refers to the freedom to which society affords individuals to form new or terminate old relationships (Oishi, 2014). Low relational mobility allows for less flexibility in interpersonal networks and relationships, such that relationships are formed based on contextual and circumstantial factors over personal active choice (Thomson et al., 2018). Overall, Thomson et al. (2018) found societies with lower relational mobility have longer-lasting and stable relationships; however, this low mobility is associated with lower levels of general trust, which can impede the process of forming new interpersonal relationships. Over the 39 societies included in this study, Taiwan – along other Confucian societies included in the study – ranks among one of the lowest relational mobile societies, and that also displays lower levels of general trust. The findings of Tan and Tambyah (2011) and Thomson et  al. (2018) further underscore the critical importance of in-group and out-group dynamics in Confucian societies. In-group relationships are given much greater significance over out-group relationships, and movements between in-group and out-group memberships are restricted as a function of higher caution and lower general trust. Additionally, the concept of guanxi, that is well entrenched within the Taiwanese culture, contributes to a low level of general trust within Taiwanese society. As previously discussed in this chapter, research has demonstrated the association between guanxi and trust in Confucian societies (e.g. Lee & Dawes, 2005; Farh et  al., 1998), such that the guanxi between individuals is important for building trust at the personal level. General trust is directed towards individuals that are not associated by guanxi; thus, general trust can be perceived as trust towards the general out-group, resulting in a lower level of trust due to the lack of in-group guanxi between the trustor and the trustee.

Interpersonal Trust Interpersonal trust refers to the generalized expectancy between an individual and another individual (i.e. trustor and trustee), such that the words, promises and oral and written statements of the trustee can be relied on (Rotter, 1980). Interpersonal trust can be established in various types of relationships, such as trust between neighbours, strangers, families or friends. A recent cross-cultural qualitative study asked Taiwanese respondents to provide contextual definitions of interpersonal trust. The study found several important themes for the conceptualization of interpersonal trust in Taiwan (Jones, Talaei, Oliveira, Kartolo, & Kwantes, 2018). Specifically, the study identified the concept of reciprocation and mutuality to be the most important factor in establishing interpersonal trust in Taiwan. Additionally, the study found the concept of ‘silent mutual understanding’ (默契) to be a unique factor for Taiwan in comparison to three other countries in the study (Canada, Iran, Brazil), in terms of the characteristics of interpersonal trust. As reviewed in the earlier section, of the five cardinal relationships, Wu Lun, three of the relationships focus on familial relations – specifically, father and son,

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husband and wife and older and younger brothers, whereas one of these five cardinal relationships pertains to the relational dynamics between friends (Hofstede & Bond, 1998). It is therefore not surprising that given the strong emphasis on familial and friend relations in Confucian ethics, the focal point of interpersonal trust in the Taiwanese context is found to significantly revolve around trust towards one’s family members and friends. Both Wave 6 and Wave 5 of the World Values Survey (2010–2014 and 2005–2009, respectively) identified high levels of trust towards family and friends in Taiwan. Specifically, 82.8% and 86.6% of the respondents across these two waves, respectively, indicated that they trust their family members completely, and 15.6% and 12.5% trust them somewhat. However, 25.4% of Taiwanese respondents indicated that they completely trust people that they know personally, while 65.1% of the respondents indicated that they trust people they know somewhat in Wave 6 of the World Values Survey (19.9% trust completely, 71.5% trust somewhat in Wave 5). It is not surprising that Taiwan – a highly collectivistic country influenced by Confucian ethics – displays such a tendency for high levels of trust for in-group members (Liu et al., 2011), specifically towards family members and friends. However, it is also evident that there is a discrepancy in the levels of trust towards family and friends within Taiwanese society. For example, Kartolo, Burr, and Kwantes (2018) conducted a qualitative study across Canada and Taiwan, exploring how participants describe a trustworthy family member and friend, using their respective languages (i.e. English for Canadian participants and Mandarin for Taiwanese participants). Results of the thematic analyses suggest integrity as the shared factor describing trustworthiness in both of the societies as both groups of participants defined a trusting family member and friend similarly, with descriptions such as reliable (可靠), honest (誠實) and promise keeping (守 承諾). However, trustworthy family and friends were found to have unique descriptors in the Taiwanese sample. Specifically, Taiwanese participants indicated that trust in family members is unconditional in nature: descriptions of a trustworthy family member included phrases such as ‘unconditionally providing help without expecting reciprocation’ (無條件付出), ‘unconditionally accepting’ (無限包容的) and ‘unconditionally loving’ (無所計較的愛). Trust towards friends, on the other hand, was described as being conditional based on several factors, such as tenure of the relationship (相處很久), ability (可以協助) and reciprocity (互相). These results further highlight the influence of Confucian ethics and guanxi on interpersonal trust in Taiwan. In particular, a trustworthy family member was perceived as one who places no conditionality on the relationship between trustor and trustee, while friends are viewed as trustworthy when they meet specific conditions, such as the ability to support and reciprocate favours or having a lengthy tenure of the friendship itself.

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Organizational Trust Organizational trust refers to employees’ confidence towards organizations and is grounded in how organizations are evaluated by their employees based on their performances and the extent to which an organization is perceived to be beneficial or, at least, not harmful towards the employees (Tan & Tan, 2000). Typically, organizational trust manifests itself in two ways: external and internal organizational trust. External trust, also known as interorganizational trust, has to do with the organizational trust one organization or individual holds towards other organizations, including other firms, clients, marketing channels and organizational allies, whereas internal trust, or intraorganizational trust, refers to the climate of trust that is developed within the organization among its members based on organizational roles, relationships and interdependencies (Huff & Kelly, 2003). It has been found that Taiwan exhibits a relatively high external trust towards organizations in comparison to other collectivistic countries. For example, a study conducted by Huff and Kelley (2003) explored differences in propensity to trust and external trust of other organizations among six Asian nations, South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia, which represented collectivistic cultures, and the United States which represented individualistic culture. Using data collected from mid-level bank managers, the results of the study show that Taiwan demonstrated higher levels of external trust than other collectivistic countries, despite scoring lower in propensity to trust and higher in propensity to distrust. This pattern is also found in the World Values Survey data, with Taiwan scoring relatively high in trust towards external organizations, such as charitable or humanitarian organizations, environmental organizations, labour unions, major companies, banks, universities and women’s organizations. This pattern of high external organizational trust is, nevertheless, unexpected for a nation with high collectivistic orientation. High collectivistic orientation would typically be expected to display higher in-­ group and lower out-group biases, which should, in turn, be translated into lower external trust through lower propensity to trust and higher propensity to distrust. While other collectivistic countries demonstrated expected patterns of lower external trust, Taiwan displayed similar patterns to individualistic cultures in terms of external trust while displaying similar patterns to collectivistic cultures for propensity to trust (Huff & Kelley, 2003). At this point, it is unclear as to why results such as those by Huff and Kelley (2003) were found – more studies are needed to help explain these unexpected and counterintuitive findings. In terms of internal organizational trust, existing studies have demonstrated the importance of guanxi to developing trust within organizations. For example, Hu (2007) found Taiwanese supervisors to display trust towards their subordinates based on both cognitive and affective underpinnings, that is, supervisors trust their subordinates based on the competencies as well as the closeness of their relationships – or guanxi. On the flip side, supervisors in the United States were found to trust their subordinates mostly based on competencies and reliabilities. Similarly, Wang, Tseng, and Yen (2012) distributed surveys to 500 Taiwanese firms in the

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technology industries and found guanxi to be an important factor influencing internal organization trust, including trust in their organizations, trust in their supervisors and trust in their colleagues. Both of these studies highlight that while cognitive-­ based trust is imperative for various levels of organizational functions and performances across different cultures, organizations in Taiwan also emphasize the importance of guanxi in developing intraorganizational trust.

Political Trust Political trust refers to the confidence people have in their political system (Wang, 2016), based on the evaluations towards the government on whether or not the government and other institutional authorities are operating in accordance to the public’s normative expectations (Hetherington, 1998; Miller & Listhaug, 1990). Interestingly, Taiwan has demonstrated the lowest levels of political trust among all Confucian Asian societies (Tan & Tambyah, 2011). To understand how political trust manifests within the Taiwanese context, it is important to first understand the political history and dynamics in Taiwan. Throughout the 1600s and 1800s, Taiwan was considered to be a province in China during the Qing Empire in China and it was controlled by the Qing Dynasty (The Official Website of the Republic of China, n.d.). After losing to Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, the government of China gave Taiwan to Japan as a colony until 1945. Following the defeat of WW II, Japan was forced to surrender Taiwan to the Republic of China (ROC), by the United Kingdom and the United States. In 1949, the ROC government in China – also known as the Kuomintang (KMT) – withdrew from China and relocated to Taiwan following their defeat in China’s Civil War in 1948. Naturally, this relocation of a mass population from China created political unrest and identity conflicts between the ‘in-province’ (i.e. those who were under the ruling of Japanese) and ‘outside-province’ (i.e. those who relocated from China as part of the KMT migration) Taiwanese. This conflict escalated and led to the massacre and imprisonment of over 10,000 ‘in-province’ Taiwanese by the ‘outside-province’ Taiwanese and the KMT, known as the ‘February 28 or 228 Incident’. Following this unfortunate incident, the KMT government ruled the whole island of Taiwan with an authoritarian regime, including martial law from 1948 to 1987, imposing their rule, language (i.e. Mandarin) and identity onto the people of Taiwan. The end of martial law led to the establishment of an opposing political party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which gave rise to the beginning of democracy in Taiwan. On one hand, the DPP – symbolized with the colour green – supports the independence of Taiwan as a nation, whereas on the other hand, the KMT – symbolized with the colour blue – opposes the ideas of independence and sought to informally establish relations between Taiwan and mainland China (Chu,

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2004; Huang, Liu, & Chang, 2004). Following the establishment of the DPP, the KMT and other small independent parties, Taiwan developed fully into a ­democratic political system and held its first presidential elections in 1996 (The Official Website of the Republic of China, n.d.). The KMT’s Lee Teng-hui was elected as the first president in Taiwan. The DPP’s Chen Shui-bian was elected in 2000, signifying the end of the KMT’s 50-year rule and the transference of ROC government executive power between political parties in Taiwan. The DPP’s Chen won the re-election in 2004, holding the position as the ruling party from 2000 to 2008. The KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou was voted as the president in the 2008 and 2012 elections. Finally, DPP reclaimed the ROC government executive power with Tsai Ing-wen voted in as the first female president in Taiwan in 2016. As reflected in the voting results, the people of Taiwan have been constantly facing the dilemma of their national identity, struggling between the polarizing political ideologies of pro-unification with China (pan-blue KMT ideology) and pro-independence (pan-green DPP ideology) as a nation (Huang, 2010). This constant struggle of national identity and polarizing political ideologies has created a culture of low political trust in the Taiwanese cultural context. According to the World Values Survey, majority of the respondents in Taiwan indicated ‘not very much’ in responding to trust and confidence towards the political parties; at both Wave 5 (2005–2009) and Wave 6 (2010–2014) of the World Values Survey, 46.5% and 51.7% of the respondents reported not very much trust in their political parties. Using the 2006 Asian Barometer Survey, Wong, Hsiao, and Wan (2009) and Tan and Tambyah (2011) examined how trust towards institutions is distributed in Confucian societies. Wong et al. (2009) compared and contrasted the level of political trust in Hong Kong and Taiwan and found people in Taiwan to show lower levels of political trust, specifically in all governmental branches, including the executive, judicial and legislative branches. Tan and Tambyah (2011) examined political trust across seven Confucian Asian societies, including China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Hong Kong. These authors found Taiwan to display the lowest political trust across multiple political and public service institutions among these societies. Most notably, Taiwan was found to have minimal trust towards the central government, the parliament, the political parties and the legal system. According to Wong et al. (2009) and Wang (2016), the low political trust in Taiwan was the function of the public’s evaluation, based on the perception of government performance and corruption. While there are currently no studies linking the conflicting national identities and polarizing political ideologies to low level of political trust in Taiwan, it stands to reason that the relationship between the former and the latter exists. In order to investigate political trust based on the functions of government performances, research should situate the impact of Taiwanese political history and its progression on the current development and maintenance of political trust. It is important to note that this low level of political trust can extend towards low levels of trust towards all societal institutions, including organizations.

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Summary and Implications Trust functions in a multitude of ways, across individual, institutional and societal levels. Trust can be manifested in scenarios as simple as trusting one’s classmate to return the borrowed pencil by the end of the exam or trusting one’s co-worker to finish the required tasks on time, to something as complex as trusting one’s neighbour to not break into one’s house when one is on vacation or trusting the government to do right by its people. Research has suggested that some aspects of trust are universal (etic), such that trust is defined as a mutual confidence, built through established expectations while not exploiting the vulnerabilities of the other (Sable, 1993; Mayer et  al., 1995). However, increasing evidence has also suggested that many aspects of trust are culturally specific (emic). As discussed throughout this chapter, the culturally specific aspects of the development, function and maintenance of trust within the Taiwanese context are heavily influenced by the doctrine and teaching of Confucian ethics, in particular the concept of guanxi. Trust embedded in and through guanxi is observable and manifested through interpersonal and organizational trust as illustrated in this chapter. In contrast political trust in Taiwan has a unique cultural underpinning, as it has been shaped by Taiwan’s distinctive political dynamics and history over the past few centuries. Rooted within the teachings of Confucianism, this chapter reviews how the development and maintenance of interpersonal trust in Taiwan are constructed and perpetuated with respect to in-group and out-group relationships and dynamics. In short, strangers are perceived as out-group due to the lack of guanxi and thus resulting in a low level of generalized trust towards these individuals within the Taiwanese society. Closer interpersonal relationships established through guanxi among friends and families also manifest differentially across types of trust within this cultural context. When trust is built on a friendship, it is conditioned upon multiple factors, such as the length of time of the friendship and the mutual reciprocation of favours and agreements with one’s friends. Consequently, to obtain trust on the interpersonal level in Taiwan, one must first establish some sort of relational ties (or guanxi) through the acts of exchanging favours (or renqing), managing good impressions (or mianzi) or spending substantial amount of time in keeping the friendship. Trust that is established within a family, however, is understood as being unwavering and unconditional, such that trust between family members is developed through unconditional acceptance and love. Such a principle is reinforced through the Confucian teaching of Wu Lun. The influence of Confucian teachings and the concept of guanxi are also observable in the characteristic of trust within Taiwanese organizations. Huff and Kelley (2003) report counterintuitive findings in external organizational trust for the Taiwanese context  – high external trust despite a heavy cultural emphasis of in-­ group biases – the reason for such a finding is currently unclear and require further research. Additional empirical studies need to be conducted in this area to help further decipher our understanding of external trust in the Taiwanese context. With respect to internal organizational trust in Taiwan, the current literature points to the

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central role of guanxi. In particular, having established guanxi is imperative for building trust in Taiwanese organizations. It is noteworthy that in the workplace, the emphasis on guanxi and its importance with respect to trust can be observed throughout multidirectional relationships, across vertical top-down (i.e. supervisor to subordinate), bottom-up (i.e. employee to supervisor) and even horizontal relationships (i.e. colleague to colleague). Finally, perhaps the most interesting manifestation of trust in Taiwan is evident in its polarizing perceptions of political trust. Given the tumultuous political history and development, as well as the constant struggle with national identity among Taiwanese people, Taiwan as a nation has demonstrated polarizing views in its trust towards political parties and institutions. Overall, this chapter underscores the following about trust: while trust possesses universal attributes across cultures, a fuller and more concise understanding of trust, in terms of how it is influenced, developed and maintained in a society, can only be achieved through a critical cultural lens.

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Tan, S., & Tambyah, S. (2011). Generalized trust and trust in institutions in Confucian Asia. Social Indicators Research, 103(3), 357–377. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9703-7 The Official Website of the Republic of China. (n.d.). History. Retrieved from https://www.taiwan. gov.tw/content_3.php [March 25, 2019] Thomson, R., Yuki, M., Talhelm, T., Schug, J., Kito, M., … Visserman, M. L. (2018). Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(29), 7521–7526. Wang, J., Wang, G. G., Ruona, W. E. A., & Rojewski, J. W. (2005). Confucian values and the implications for international HRD. Human Resource Development International, 3, 311–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/13678860500143285 Wang, C. (2016). Government performance, corruption, and political trust in East Asia. Social Science Quarterly, 97(2), 211–231. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12223 Wang, H.  K., Tseng, J.  F., & Yen, Y.  F. (2012). Examining the mechanisms linking guanxi, norms and knowledge sharing: The mediating roles of trust in Taiwan’s high-tech firms. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(19), 4048–4068. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/09585192.2011.654234 Ward, P., Mamerow, L., & Meyer, S. (2014). Interpersonal trust across six Asia-Pacific countries: Testing and extending the ‘high trust society’ and ‘low trust society’ theory. Plos One, 9(4), e95555. Wee, C. (2011). “Xin”, trust, and Confucius’ ethics. Philosophy East and West, 61(3), 516–533. Wong, T. K., Hsiao, H. M., & Wan, P. (2009). Comparing political trust in Hong Kong and Taiwan: Levels, determinants, and implications. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 10(2), 147–174. https://doi.org/10.1017/S146810990900351X Yeh, Q., & Xu, X. (2010). The effect of Confucian work ethics on learning about science and technology knowledge and morality. Journal of Business Ethics, 95, 111–128. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10551-009-0352-1 Arief Kartolo is a Taiwanese-Indonesian Canadian. He is a PhD candidate in the Applied Social Psychology program, specializing in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, at the University of Windsor located in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. His research focuses on the effects of intergroup and intercultural conflicts in the workplace. He is currently examining the impact of stereotype assumptions on the extent to which leaders who belong to demographic minority groups are viewed as effective. His research has been published in journals such as Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: An International Journal, Journal of Public Mental Health, and Social Media + Society.  

Ben Kuo is a Professor in the Adult Clinical Psychology at the University of Windsor, Canada and a registered psychologist in Ontario. His research focuses on the intersection between culture and psychology, particularly in the areas of multicultural counseling and training and cross-cultural psychology. Dr. Kuo regularly teaches and supervises clinical psychology graduate students in multicultural psychotherapy course and practicum with diverse clients, including refugees and immigrant. Dr. Kuo has traveled, lectured, provided training, and consulted internationally in Taiwan, China, Thailand, New Zealand, Russia, Brazil, Poland, and the UK, as a distinguished visiting professor. In 2018 Dr. Kuo served as the Guest Editor for the special issue of Psynopsis – the official communiqué of the Canadian Psychological Association – on “Refugee Mental Health.” Dr. Kuo is a recipient of many awards from the University of Windsor; these distinctions include the Outstanding Research Award: Established Research/Scholar Category (2017); the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science’s Dr. Kathleen E. McCrone Teaching Award (2017); and the Mary Lou Dietz Equity Leadership Award (2019).  

Chapter 5

Trust in Iran Amirreza Talaei and Esmaeil Hashemi

Abstract  While many of the characteristics of a trustworthy person in Iran are similar to those in other cultures (e.g., honesty, keeping secrets), other qualities such as being devout and safe keeper are probably more unique to the Iranian culture. Being devout for Iranians is closely related to the concept of being a good person, someone who has good intentions for others and is morally principled. While safe keeping is known as one of the main and most commonly cited epithets of Prophet Muhammad. This reflects the immense influence that religion has had on the Iranian culture and specifically on the meaning of trust and trustworthiness for Iranian people. Additionally, various major national and international events throughout history, such as the 1979 revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, and the current political tensions and unstable economic conditions have had lasting effects on both societal and organizational trust in Iran. Low societal trust has led to a high level of uncertainty about the future and various forms of sociopolitical instabilities. Also, low levels of trust among employees and between managers and subordinates have created disengaged workforces and inefficient teams. Despite such major negative societal and organizational consequences, low levels of trust have caused people to develop certain types of social skills and competencies that are needed to survive and even thrive in a low trust culture.

Keywords  Trust · Trustworthiness · Iran · Organizational culture · Societal culture “May Ahuramazda protect this land from invaders, from drought, and from dishonesty!” Darius the Great, King of the Persian Empire, 500 BC

A. Talaei () University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] E. Hashemi University of Shahid Chamran, Ahvaz, Iran © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7_5

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The country of Iran is located in West Asia with a population of over 80,000,000 (Amar.org, 2016). Despite its proximity to some Arab countries in the south and the west of the Persian Gulf, Iran is culturally more similar to South Asian countries than Arab countries (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003). In fact, the Persian (Farsi) language used to be the official language in South Asia for centuries and has ­influenced the languages spoken today in those regions immensely (Cole, 2002). Traditionally, people with different ethnicities (e.g., Fars, Lor, Kurd, Baloch, Turk, Arab, Armenian, Georgian) and religions (e.g., Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism) have been living in Iran; however, the current official language and religion in Iran are Persian and Islam (Shi’a), respectively.

The Meaning of Trust in Iran In Iran, a trustworthy person is someone who is honest, keeps secrets, is a problem solver, is devout (religious and God-fearing), and is a safe keeper (someone who does his or her best to take care of and protect others’ belongings or nonmaterial properties such as their secrets; Talaei et  al., 2013). While most of the qualities Iranians know to be necessary for being a trustworthy person are agreed upon universally (e.g., honesty, keeping secrets), being a safe keeper and devout are probably not. Regarding safe keeping and devoutness as crucial characteristics of a trustworthy person, reflects the influence of religious and specifically Islamic teachings on the Iranian culture. In fact, one of the most commonly used epithets for Prophet Muhammad in Islamic texts is safe keeper (i.e., the safe-keeper Muhammad). Additionally, the meaning of devout for Iranians is very much associated with being a good person in general: someone who does not do wrong, abides by moral principles, and has good intentions for others (Talaei et  al., 2016). Therefore, being devout could result in an individual being perceived as a trustworthy person. The influence of religious teachings on the meaning of trust in Iran has mainly originated from verses of the Holy Quran and hadith (speeches of Prophet Muhammad and Imams), which contain abundant teachings on the type of people one should trust. For example, according to a hadith by Prophet Muhammad, “One can trust other Muslims if he can find them with three traits, namely modesty, safe keeping, and honesty” (Payandeh, 1984, p.  193). Similarly, before the advent of Islam, Zoroaster (~1500 BC) encouraged his followers to abide by three basic principles of good words, good deeds, and good thoughts (Pourdavoud, 1998) and advised them to stand for honesty in all circumstances, which is the foundation for building trust among people. Stories with the concept of trust and lessons on who should or should not be trusted could also be found in the works of ancient Persian poets and writers such as Khayyam (eleventh century), Rumi (thirteenth century), and Hafiz (fourteenth century) who have had immense influence on the current cultural practices and values in Iran. For example, Hafiz states in his poems that this world is ever-changing and it is not wise to trust such a worthless ephemeral thing; conversely, God is the only undying thing that could be trusted (Hafiz, 1996).

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Therefore, the concept of trust and the teachings about it have deep roots in Iranian culture. Its necessity and importance as a personal virtue have been emphasized throughout Iranian history, and it is considered one of the most commendable qualities an individual could possess.

Trust Levels in Iran The general trust level is relatively low, while the general caution level is quite high in Iran (Azadearmaki, 2004; Azadearmaki & Kamali, 2004; Rafiapour, 1999; Shareapour, 2001). More specifically, Iranians have below-average trust levels in the government, parliament, justice system, political parties, and media, among others (Inglehart et al., 2014). For example, several studies conducted with different Iranian populations have shown that Iranians’ trust in the national media such as the national TV and newspapers is at a moderate level or less (Sarokhani & Abdolmaleki, 2016; Torbati, 2012). According to Torbati (2012), Iranians evaluate BBC Persian (an anti-government TV channel based in the United Kingdom) more highly than national news channels with respect to censorship and neutrality. Iranians tend to have a low level of international trust as well. For example, more than half of Iranians reported that they do not have full confidence in the work of the United Nations (Inglehart et al., 2014). Such low trust levels might have been influenced by many historical events and cultural factors and have led to various societal consequences.

Cultural Factors Influencing Trust in Iran Collectivism Collectivism is defined as a social pattern that links individuals to parts of collectives (family, tribe, nation, etc.; Triandis, 2018). Collectivism causes individuals to prioritize the collective self over the private self, when in conflict (Yamaguchi, 1994). While the level of institutional collectivism (the degree to which people are concerned with the societal interests) is not very high in Iran, the level of in-group collectivism (the degree to which people are attached to their family members or close friends) is quite high (House et al., 2004). High levels of in-group collectivism and generally strong ties with close family members and friends may result in lower trust in people who are outside of that collective circle. A high degree of in-group collectivism makes people spend significantly more time with those close to them and less with outsiders. This is observed in Iran as the number of family or close friends gatherings far exceeds the number of community-related gatherings and events. This can lead to people remaining dis-

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tant from outsiders and thus more distrusting of outsiders (see Realo, Allik, & Greenfield, 2008). When people are distrusting of outsiders, they will resort to their in-groups for help and support (Voci, 2006). This could create a vicious cycle in which in-group collectivism elevates distrust levels in outsiders, and distrust in outsiders strengthens in-group collectivism and internal bonds among in-group members.

Power Distance Power distance is defined as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede, 1994, p. 28). Power distance scores in Iran are quite high, meaning that Iran is a relatively hierarchical society (House et. al., 2004). The high level of power distance in Iran could be partly attributed to the fact that throughout its long history, Iran has always been ruled by extremely powerful authority figures (e.g., Adams, 1972). This has established a culture of respecting authority unconditionally, fearing it, not questioning it, and accepting hierarchical structures as a normal part of society. In such a society, as is in Iran, individuals with higher status explicitly exhibit their authority over those with lower status. They expect the followers to acknowledge their power and obey them, and challenging authority’s orders is viewed as an impolite and aggressive behavior. The natural consequence of such a high level of power distance would be more freedom for powerholders to make rules, adjust rules to their desire, make exceptions, and in essence make rules inconsistent over contexts and times. This has serious implications for individuals’ trust in powerholders; this is because consistency and predictability of an entity’s behaviors are crucial ingredients for trust (Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007; Gabarro, 1978). When rules and practices are made arbitrarily and change frequently depending on the leader’s desires, subordinates will lose trust in the leader and the society or the organization he or she leads.

Uncertainty Avoidance Uncertainty avoidance refers to the degree to which people of a society are comfortable with a lack of structure and ambiguity in their life. It is “the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid these situations by establishing more formal rules, by not tolerating deviant ideas and behaviors, and believing in absolute truths and attainments of expertise” (Hofstede, 1980, p. 46). Iran scores relatively low on uncertainty avoidance (House et al., 2004). The high tolerance of Iranians for ambiguity could be one of the long-­ term ramifications of experiencing a war, living under unpredictable economic conditions, and enduring sanctions for so long. Going through these adversities over a

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long period of time may have made Iranians accustomed to ambiguity and made them learn how to function under uncertainty. Although a high tolerance for ambiguity (uncertainty) makes it easier for people to survive under unpredictable conditions, it has certain consequences that could be detrimental to the trust people have in their society and the institutions operating within such a society. Higher tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity means higher tolerance for lack of structures and rules. That is, the more people are tolerant of uncertainty, the more they will let ambiguous and lax rules live on (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003). The result of this high tolerance will be a lack of sufficient necessary rules, subjective interpretation of the rules, and bending them whenever needed. This can lead to even more arbitrary and more ever-changing rules and consequently lower levels of people’s general trust.

Historical Influences on National Trust in Iran Given that trust is built over time (Talay & Akdeniz, 2014) the concept of trust could be best understood when studied in the context of Iranian historical events. In fact, Iran has gone through multitude of ups and downs throughout history from the advent of the Persian Empire in 550 BC to the modern-day Iran. The more recent major events however are probably the most influential ones on the general trust levels of modern-day Iranian people.

Revolution: How Transformative Changes Influence Trust The 1979 revolution in Iran arguably influenced the general trust level in Iranians in various ways. Naturally, any revolution or major transformative event that is expected to bring about desirable outcomes for people is associated with high expectations and hopes for a brighter future (Reed, 2004). If such expectations are not met, people may start to distrust those who directed the movement or promised those positive outcomes (see Robinson, 1996; Turnley & Feldman, 2000). The Islamic revolution in Iran happened mainly due to the dissatisfaction of the majority of Iranians with Shah’s1 governance policies such as his strong tendency for Westernization of the country that was in conflict with the religious identity of most Iranians (Mckay, 1998). Further, Shah’s return to power and his reappointment by the United States and England with the assistance of the American CIA in 1953 made him known as a Western figurehead among most Iranians, and this increased people’s resentment toward him (Brumberg, 2001). Shah’s autocratic tendencies that violated the constitution (Katouzian, 1981), his poor reputation among the

 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the second and last king of the Pahlavi dynasty.

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majority of people due to his corruption, and his inability to attract supporters among Shi’a religious leaders to confront Khomeini’s campaign were among the most important reasons behind people’s disapproval of him, and these reasons eventually led to the 1979 revolution (Mckay, 1998; Milani, 2012). The revolutionists’ goal was to abolish Shah’s regime and replace its dictatorship with a republic government that would involve participation of all political parties and establish economic justice (Abrahamian, 1982; Shayegan, 2002). After the success of the revolution in 1979 and when the post-revolution honeymoon phase (Brinton, 1965) had passed, people came to realization that their lofty expectations were not going to be met. This was mainly due to the intensive conflict between political parties on substantial issues such as the type of government to be instituted, constitutional provisions, and level of social freedoms that should be allowed. As time passed, people’s dissatisfaction about how the country was being ruled and their dissatisfaction toward the country’s leaders increased. Much of this dissatisfaction was due to the unstable and unpromising economic conditions that existed despite Iran’s natural wealth and potential for growth. Also, after the revolution, Iran faced more and more political tensions and conflicts with other powerful nations, none of which were present during the regime of the previous Shah’s. These issues have been at least partly attributed to improper leadership of the country and the excessive involvement of clerics in ruling the country – something that is not within their expertise (see Buchta, 2004; Katzman, 2018; Takeyh, 2004). The lack of ability of Iran’s leaders in meeting people’s expectations and maintaining their basic promises has decreased people’s trust in them and the way they handle the country’s issues (see Colquitt & Salam, 2009; Colquitt et al., 2007).

War: How Adversities Influence Trust Although the Iran-Iraq war did increase internal cohesiveness in Iran and brought people together more than before due to the common external threat they were facing (see Friedkin, 2004), its negative psychological consequences probably have had more long-lasting effects on Iranian people. In fact, some predictability of events or general social order is a crucial contributing factor to general trust (Misztal, 2001). When events are not predictable, especially when they are threatening, individuals tend to become more cautious. The intense feeling of insecurity experienced during a war can have a lasting negative effect on individuals’ mental health and general trust (e.g., Catani, 2018; Murthy & Lakshminarayana, 2006). In a country that has experienced a war and its aftermath, it may be more adaptive for its people to maintain a very low level of generalized trust (see Van Lange, 2015). Unfortunately, this generalized distrust, just as other long-term mental health effects of war, may continue over time even long after the war ended. The adverse effects of war could be even more detrimental to the trust propensity of children who have been exposed to war episodes in early years of their life (Conzo & Salustri, 2019). Parents who are under intensive stress during the war

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must use their resources (e.g., time, energy) to cope with the anxiety and the economic pressure resulting from the war. This could cause parents to become emotionally unstable and be unable to meet their children’s psychological needs in a consistent manner (see Conzo & Salustri, 2019). Consequently, it would be harder for children to form the secure attachment with their parents which is the cornerstone of trust propensity in adulthood (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991; Bowlby, 1979; Erikson, 1950; Hasanovic, 2011). It should be noted that the 8-year Iran-Iraq war was not the only war that Iranians went through. Just a few years after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the United States, the United Nations, and some European countries started an economic war against Iran by imposing economic sanctions against Iran, most of which are still in effect today. In fact, the adverse humanitarian effects of economic sanctions have been shown to be equal to or greater than those of military wars in the long term (Allen & Lektzian, 2013; Garfield, Devin, & Fausey, 1995). The consequences of sanctions in Iran have been seen in economic recession, inflation, unemployment, and an extremely unstable and stagnant economy (Aghazadeh, 2013). A poor economic condition is indeed one of the major antecedents of low levels of general trust in societies. When under economic pressure, people tend to become extremely cautious and distrusting of others and of the society they live in (Ermisch & Gambetta; 2016; Falk & Zehnder, 2013; Gereke, Schaub, & Baldassarri, 2018). The perception of limited resources makes people fight for their rights and also make sure their rights are not taken from them (Korndorfer, Egloff, & Schmukle, 2015; Shah, Mullainathan, & Shafir, 2012). Therefore, arguably, the wars that Iranians have been facing during the past decades have had both direct and indirect effects on their current low levels of general trust and high levels of caution.

 he Present Time: Contemporary Determinants of National T Trust Inefficient Governance of the Country Iran has gone through difficult times over the past decades, but what has intensified the people’s mistrust in their leaders is probably the increasingly inefficient management of the country at the present time, despite all the promises made by the government for improvement of national and international affairs. Iranian leaders have not been able to repair the people’s mistrust in them and have in fact exacerbated it as the economic, political, and societal problems have worsened in recent years (e.g., Kempe, 2019). Most notably, Iran has been suffering from economic problems for a long time. This might be attributed to the incompetence of the government in managing its abundant natural resources and human capital (see Mohaddes & Pesaran, 2013). Iran has also lost its amicable relationships with other countries and has lost the respect it used to receive internationally, even as recent as

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pre-revolution era (Abrahamian, 2012). This would as well be attributed to the government’s lack of competence in managing its international affairs. In addition to their incompetence in ruling the country in various aspects, Iranian leaders have also shown a lack of integrity, honesty, and good intentions on several fronts. This is probably a stronger factor than the government’s general incompetence in leading people to distrust the government (Elsbach & Currall, 2012). For a long time, Iranians have been fighting for a level of freedom that would be considered the bare minimum in most other countries of the world (see Human Rights Council, 2018; United Nations, 2015). Critics of the government could not express their views freely, and protestors have been jailed frequently and even killed as a result of their anti-government activities (United Nations Human Rights, 2019). In early 2020, a commercial plane carrying 176 passengers was shot down by Iranian forces, purportedly by mistake. This was admitted by the Iranian government only after other countries pressured Iran to reveal the real cause of the incident by providing intelligence data indicating the firing of missiles. The initial decision of the government to conceal the real cause of the crash aggravated the perception that people had of the dishonesty of the government (Sadri, 2020). Any trust Iranians had in their government plummeted and made them wonder if Iran has been honest with its own citizens about other previous significant events, including similar disasters in the past (Behravesh, 2020).

Powerholder Corruption One of the consequences of high levels of power distance, especially when paired with high levels of tolerance for ambiguity, is powerholders’ proneness to corruption. Power distance is associated with lower organizational or societal transparency (House et al., 2004). It sets up opportunities for powerholders to engage in different forms of corruption that goes beyond favoritism, nepotism, or simpler forms of power abuse. When paired with lax rules, power distance gives leaders the ability to engage in major corrupt behaviors such as embezzlement, to feel confident that they will be able to cover their crime one way or another, and to get away with the punishment somehow if they get caught. Corruption of powerholders, unfortunately, has been a problem in Iran for a long time, although it could not be generalized to all individuals in power (Torbat, 2013; Zamahani, 2016). The implication of powerholders’ corruption in any context, societal or institutional, is quite clear. When the perceived integrity of the leaders is decreased, their subordinates’ trust in them will decline as well (see Colquitt & Salam, 2009; Engelbrecht, Heine, & Mahembe, 2017). This will be a stronger case in Iran since according to Islamic teachings leaders are expected to have superior qualities. In fact, there are multitudes of passages in Islamic texts on the attributes of an ideal leader and advice for people to emulate their leaders (Amirianzade & Mohammadi, 2004; Khalatbari & Sedarat, 2014; Pirooz, 2011). Hence, in Iran, leaders are strongly expected to demonstrate virtues such as integrity and decency more than anyone

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else. Clearly, if a leader in this society engages in corrupt behaviors, people’s trust in him/her will plummet drastically. In that case, people would conceivably become even more distrustful of ordinary people, who were not expected to be as impeccable as leaders in the first place.

International Trust Among Iranians International trust is conceptualized as “a generalized belief about whether most foreign countries behave in accordance with normative expectations regarding the conduct of nations” (Brewer et al., 2004, p. 96). When international trust is high, people see the world as a friendly environment where trust and cooperation between countries are the norm. On the other hand, when international trust is low, the world is seen as a hostile place where all countries compete with each other for advantage and avoid cooperation. Thus, international trust is based on an assumption that most other countries have good intentions and should be given the benefit of the doubt (Brewer et al., 2004). International trust in Iran has been damaged profoundly, and it is currently at a very low level. The reasons behind such a low level of trust could be attributed to the actions of some of the Western countries, specifically the United States, against Iran throughout history to date. The 1953 Iranian coup d’état aimed at overthrowing the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh (Saghaye Biria, 2018), the Halabja chemical massacre directly supported by the US government in 1988 (Crogan, 2003), and the shoot down of an Iranian commercial plane on July 3, 1988 by a missile fired from USS Vincennes that killed all 290 passengers onboard including 66 children (Nancy, 2007) are just some of the historical inhumane actions that have damaged the trust of Iranian people in the West. Most recently, the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka Iran nuclear deal) and the United States’ imposition of further crippling sanctions on Iran, such as halting the import of life-saving medicine and medical equipment to the country which shortly caused a surge in patients’ deaths (see Ghalibafian, Hemmati, & Bouffet, 2018; Kokabisaghi, 2018), are a clear violation of human rights, according to several international human rights treaties (UN Commission for Human Rights, 2000; UN Human Rights Council, 2009; World Health Organization, 1960; see also Ebrahimi, Jalalian, & Esfandyari, 2015; Farsad et al., 2019; Mousavi & Mohammadi, 2015). Such actions against ordinary Iranian people have undeniably damaged the perceived integrity and benevolence of the West and consequently people’s trust in it. Further, the inability of the United Nations to take any practical measures against such clear violations of international human rights (Mulligan, 2018) has surely exacerbated Iranian people’s distrust in international institutions.

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Societal Implications Low Level of Future Orientation Future orientation refers to the extent to which individuals engage in future related behaviors such as planning for future or investing in future plans. Iranians’ low scores on future orientation show that they tend to have short time horizons (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003). This could be a direct consequence of low levels of general trust. Vague and ever-changing rules and regulations, which could be due to the high level of power distance (powerholders changing rules based on their personal desires) and the high tolerance for ambiguity, make it harder for people to have full trust in the future and to confidently plan for the future. It should be noted that although the Iranians’ “as is” scores on future orientation are low, their “should be” scores are the second highest among all other countries (Dastmalchian, Javidan, & Alam, 2001). That is, Iranians put a great emphasis on the importance of future orientation and planning for their future. Similarly, Iranians’ low scores on indulgence (considering gratification of current impulses and present desires as a pointless behavior; Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov, 2010) show that they put a greater value on future successes. Such low scores on indulgence could well be a result of low trust in the future as it would unfold naturally and the desire to be more proactive in creating a more positive future for self.

Brain Drain One of the challenges Iran has faced for a long time is brain drain or the high immigration rate of skilled workers and scientists to developed countries. In fact, Iran has had one of the highest rate of brain drain in the world (Carrington & Detragiache, 1999; Özden & Schiff, 2006). Such a high rate of brain drain could be a result of low levels of trust in the future. When the future is unpredictable and determined by factors that are out of individuals’ control, any investment in it can be squandered. Therefore, people may choose to immigrate to other countries that would allow them to have a more predictable and controllable life. Another reason behind the problem of brain drain in Iran could be the high level of power distance. High-power-distance societies tend to underutilize their most important asset, which is their people. Individuals in high-power-distance contexts (organizational or societal contexts) are not involved in important decision-making processes and are expected to have a submissive attitude toward their superiors and/ or managers. Moreover, typically large gaps exist in communication between managers and their subordinates in such contexts (Khatri, 2009). These are certainly not the characteristics of a society or an organization that individuals, especially the ambitious elite, would like to live in or work at.

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Adjustments in Cultural Components It is plausible that the distrust of people in authorities, their integrity, and decision-­ making can diminish the respect people have for them. Over time, people’s approval for a high-power-distance culture will be decreased as they will lose their tolerance for absolute power, and unconditional obedience will not be practiced as strongly as before. This could be inferred from the difference between the “as is” and “should be” scores on power distance for Iranians, which is the largest of all cultural dimensions in Iran (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003). Similarly, if the high tolerance for ambiguity leads to intolerable levels of unruly leadership of the country and its organizations, appropriate rules might be created and enforced more seriously in order to manage the chaos. In fact, the “should be” score on this dimension is the third highest among all countries (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003), indicating the strong desire of Iranians for more certainty and predictability. Such cultural shifts could happen to any other cultural dimension if the troubles the dimension brings outweigh the comfort associated with maintaining it. Increased inter-cultural relations due to advances in technology, high levels of social media usage, and globalization play a major facilitating role in cultural adjustments. Inter-cultural awareness could attenuate people’s tendency to rigidly maintain their current ways of living and practices, as they become aware of other likely more efficient ways of life and work (Sawyer & Chen, 2012; Vesajoki, 2002). Inter-cultural awareness might be more crucial for cultural change in a country like Iran with a very normative culture, which prefers to maintain traditions and norms and views societal change with suspicion (see Hofstede, 2011).

The Prospect of a New Revolution Iran’s leaders have failed to deliver on the political, social, and economic promises they have made throughout the past decades. The mistrust in the country’s rulers and their capability to manage the nation properly has made people lose hope for a better future under the same regime. This has made the situation ripe for another revolution in Iran. The country has already faced various instances of protests against the regime and its leaders (Ghobadzadeh, 2019; Golkar, 2019). Meanwhile, some foreign countries with deep-rooted animosity with the Iranian regime, and above all the United States, are taking advantage of the people’s disappointment at the government and are trying to reduce the legitimacy of the Islamic republic in the eyes of Iranians through various outlets such as social media (Dehghanpisheh, 2018). Reduced legitimacy of the regime could make it more likely for a revolution to take place. One of the implications of a negative perception of the government and mistrusting the country’s rulers is that people would resist orders, rules, or regulations imposed on them by that government. This would cause the government to use

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stronger force against its people, sometimes excessively and illegitimately, in order to take control of the situation, as has been observed in some of the recent protests that happened in Iran (Swart, 2019). Such inhumane actions against people would confirm the negative view that people had about their government and would further reinforce their mistrust in their rulers. This vicious cycle may continue and become stronger to the point where the government’s force will not be able to overcome the people’s force.

Organizational Implications  emotivation and Disengagement: Low Institutional D Collectivism Institutional collectivism refers to the extent to which members of a society respect broader societal interests versus their individual interests. It is the degree to which individuals are encouraged by social institutions to be integrated into groups within organizations and the society. In a society with a high level of institutional collectivism, collective goals and interests are more important than individual goals and interests (House et al, 2004). Iranians score quite low on this type of collectivism (Inglehart et al., 2014). This could be a result of distrust in the society, organizations, and other groups within the society. The long history of repressive and corrupt governments and rulers in Iran may have damaged the general trust of Iranians in the collective systems, leaders, and their decision-making (Keddie, 2002). This has in turn caused people to become individual achievers and be less concerned about the interest of the collective systems  – the larger society and its major organizations (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003). Individualistic achievement seeking will be even stronger when people are aware of the corrupt behaviors of their leaders. When those at the top of the society or organizations engage in self-serving behaviors, ordinary people are likely to follow the same path in even more Machiavellianistic ways and be less willing to invest in collective goals of the organization (Lian, Ferris, & Brown, 2012). In an organizational culture characterized by a high level of individualistic achievement seeking, employees will be motivated to work only when they know the effort they put into the work will serve their own individual goals, which may or may not overlap with organizational goals. In such a culture, leaders must consider individual ambitions and goals of their employees, so they can better motivate and engage them in organizational-level goals.

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Mistrust in Organizational Decision-Making One of the implications of high in-group collectivism is a higher degree of favoritism toward in-groups. This could have important implications in the organizational context. High levels of collectivism could facilitate nepotism and various forms of favoritism and in general increase relationship-based decision-making in organizations (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003). Additionally, ambiguous and lax rules resulting from a high degree of uncertainty tolerance and a perception of having unlimited authority to make decisions resulting from a high level of power distance would make it easier for leaders to make important organizational decisions based on their personal likings or preferences. This is evident in Iran in organizational selection processes, promotional decisions, performance evaluations, and in day-to-day ­interactions between managers and their subordinates (see Harper, Bevilacqua, & Tatulashvili, 2014). Other than decisions made based on personal likings and favoritism, some decisions are made on criteria which are apparently not self-serving, but still unrelated to the job or organizational outcomes. Specifically, the influence of religion on organizational practices is clearly observable in public organizations in Iran. For example, in the hiring process for public sector organizations, candidates may be asked about not only their religion but also various questions to assess the level of their religiosity (Abdollahi, 2017; Ghazi, 2017; Harper et al., 2014). This might be influenced by the belief that a religious person possesses a higher level of integrity (Talaei et al., 2016), and therefore, high levels of awareness about religious principles and knowledge could be used as a proxy to measure candidates’ integrity. Arbitrary decision-making, lack of transparency, and unclear and often under-­ communicated evaluation criteria are among the main reasons that Iranian employees cannot trust that their good work will be recognized and evaluated fairly. One of the reasons behind this insufficient communication and lack of transparency in Iranian organizations might be due to the high-context culture of Iran, as it is the case in many other countries in the Middle East and Asia (Nishimura, Nevgi, & Tella, 2008). In a high-context culture, messages are not communicated in a direct or explicit way. Instead, it rests upon individuals to interpret and decipher the message based on the context in which the communication happens. Essentially, people are supposed to know what the other person means to communicate (Hall, 1976; Nam, 2015). Additionally, the high level of power distance may make leaders think that it is unnecessary to convince their subordinates about the reasons behind the decisions they make. When the criteria of good work are vague or not communicated properly, employees will not be inclined to do their best. If they do meet the standards of good work, they may not be recognized or rewarded accordingly, which would further discourage them. For such individualistic achievement seekers, lack of due recognition would be a big obstacle to engagement and job effort. Further, due to the high levels of power distance, disagreements in general and specifically about evaluations may not be easily and overtly communicated to supervisors (Gunkel, Schlaegel, & Taras, 2016;

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Purohit, & Simmers, 2006). Consequently, resentment and the perception of unfairness can remain unresolved for too long and can lead to more serious negative organizational outcomes as well. As a result of organizational decisions being made based on personal likings or irrelevant criteria, it is not uncommon for employees in Iran to see less qualified colleagues getting a promotion or to have managers who are clearly less qualified than their subordinates. The mistrust in leaders’ and colleagues’ qualifications for the job and the perception of unfairness affect employee motivation and engagement (e.g., Strom, Sears, & Kelly, 2014; Zapata-Phelan, Colquitt, Scott, & Livingston, 2009). It is noteworthy to mention that such unfair organizational decisions would ultimately hinder the motivation of the favored employees as well. For example, appointing unqualified employees to positions for which they are not fit or promoting employees when they are not ready to take on new roles will surely lead to a misfit and disengaged workforce (Christensen & Wright, 2011).

Mistrust in the Future Insecurity about the future would have an undeniable negative effect on employee motivation (e.g., Shin, Hur, Moon, & Lee, 2019). Unstable economic conditions are among the main factors that Iranian organizations cannot predict if they would be able to keep all their employees for life. Many organizations must lay off a portion of their workers to adjust to changes in economic conditions, and the current regulations regarding job security are insufficient to fully protect Iranian workers from losing their jobs (Najafi & Lotfi, 2019). In a culture marked by high levels of latitude for leader decision-making, it would be even more acceptable for leaders to dismiss employees for other personal reasons as well, aside from external restrictions. Moreover, Iranians’ general mistrust in a predictable and positive future (Javidan & Dastmalchian, 2003) would make them more sensitive to the issue of job security, and slightest uncertainties about their future may have a huge impact on their work motivation.

Organizational Failures: Mistrust in Leaders When the economic condition is crippling and unstable, as is currently the case in Iran (e.g., Akbarzadeh & Conduit, 2016), organizations will naturally go through many ups and downs and even failures. In such dire situations, there is not much leaders can do to make the situation fully under control; however, employees usually see their organization’s top leaders as being responsible for the organization’s failures and setbacks. This is mainly due to the leader attribution error which refers to the belief that leaders have more impact on organizational outcomes than is actually the case (Hackman, 2004). When organizations are not able to meet their stra-

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tegic goals or deliver on the promises made to their employees or when they must change direction due to unforeseen external forces, leaders are usually the ones that are the target of the blame. That is partly because followers may not have the complete picture, underestimating influential situational factors (Scronce & Arendt, 2009), yet it will still cause a dramatic fall in the trust employees have in their organization’s decision-making authorities and will damage the motivation and performance level of workers profoundly (Heavey, Halliday, Gilbert, & Murphy, 2011; Van den Akker, Heres, Lasthuizen, & Six, 2009).

Leaders’ Mistrust in Employees If leaders do not trust employees with important and challenging tasks, employees may end up with tasks far below their capabilities, which could lead to demotivation, disengagement, and lower-level job performance (Berg, Dutton, & Wrzesniewski, 2013). Leaders’ awareness of misfit in the workforce (due to erroneous selection and appointment systems) and their perception of employees being interested in their own individualistic achievements may contribute to their mistrust in the capability and motivation of the employees for important organizational objectives. As a result, important tasks and work will always go to a handful of people who have already proven their capabilities to their superiors. Other qualified people may not be delegated with tasks appropriate to their level of expertise simply because they are not yet trusted by their superiors.

Inefficient Teamwork When there is a mistrust in teammates, working toward a collective goal becomes virtually impossible (Jones & George, 1998). Teammate mistrust in Iran may result from the understanding that others, too, are inclined to achieve their individualistic goals, and therefore, one’s high effort may not be matched by other teammates in a fair way. Another reason for teammate mistrust may be the perception that due to all the arbitrary and baseless job appointments going on in the organization, other team members may not have the appropriate qualifications and competence required to do their part of the team task. Mistrust in coworkers almost inevitably leads to conflict (Maltarich, Kukenberger, Reilly, & Mathieu, 2018). When there is mistrust in others, their criticisms or negative comments will be misinterpreted as malevolent and useless and may lead to team dysfunction (Lencioni, 2012), despite the fact that opposing views, and even conflicts if resolved constructively, could be beneficial and help the team recognize its weaknesses. It may, however, be harder for people in Iran to express or be accepting of conflicting views in teams, as in a highly in-group collectivistic country like Iran a significant emphasis is put on maintaining harmony among team members

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and on avoiding conflict with in-groups at all costs (Leung, 1987; Triandis, Bontempo, Villareal, Asai, & Lucca, 1988). Accordingly, Iranians may be unwilling to admit their opposing views in teams, since those views most likely will not be seen as benevolent comments aimed at helping the team’s mission. By expressing an apparently opposing comment, one may run the risk of being seen as an out-­ group. Therefore, on a project where there is a high likelihood of having conflicts of opinions among the team members, Iranians may avoid engaging in teamwork on such a project entirely (Khanaki & Hassanzadeh, 2010). Additionally, given the high level of power distance, Iranians rarely engage in any conflict discussions with their superiors, and therefore, they are particularly unskilled in resolving conflicts with people of higher status. Hence, if a team is composed of members of varying status (e.g., supervisors and subordinates), resolving conflicts while maintaining harmony may seem to be an even more out-of-­ reach idea. Successful teamwork requires all team members to be committed to following certain rules and structures and to maintain team discipline, so everyone’s actions can be coordinated toward a collective goal (Katzenbach & Smith, 2005; Sewell, 1998). Iranians, due to being accustomed to working under ambiguity (House et al., 2004), may not trust the usefulness of explicit rules and structures for successful teamwork. Any rigid discipline, especially if not directly related to a clear goal, may be seen as an impediment to success. Therefore, teamwork may not be maintained for a long time when highly complex coordination is needed. Leaders may also play a major role in the absence of teamwork in Iranian organizations. Perhaps, due to their perception of employees as being individualistic achievement seekers, they do not trust that their employees are willing or capable of working together toward a collective goal and sharing credit for their achievements. As a result, leaders may tend to refrain from assigning group projects to their employees unless it is absolutely necessary. Insufficient experience of employees in team working, in turn, can make them less competent in working in groups which would make them more aversive toward any kind of teamwork.

Summary Surely, trust is a positive concept that is the cornerstone of many other positive outcomes in the society and workplace. However, low levels of trust and the many contributing factors to this tendency may not have completely adverse outcomes. When general trust is low, people become more sensitive about the issue of trust, and over time, they learn how to distinguish a trustworthy person from an untrustworthy one. Moreover, in such a low trust context, they learn how to build trust when needed. Also, the high level of power distance makes people more cognizant of power dynamics and more able to appropriately adjust their behaviors accordingly. Enduring wars and living with limited resources make people learn how to survive and even thrive under stressful and nonoptimal situations. Most importantly,

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an overly ambiguous social context and a high tolerance for ambiguity can make people more astute and creative in handling social situations, both in deciphering hidden meanings in interactions and engaging in social influence (Merrotsi, 2013; Zenasni, Besançon, & Lubart, 2008). Such an astuteness is closely related to the concept of Zerangi in the Persian culture which refers to using creative and informal ways of getting what one wants (Anvari, 2002; Parales-Quenza, 2006). While low levels of Zerangi (closely related to social adroitness; Jackson, 1976) might be desirable for excelling in highly ambiguous situations, at higher levels, it can involve behaviors such as circumventing rules, taking advantage of connections, or making use of loopholes, which could lead to corruption if used to the extreme and especially by powerful individuals. Finally, given the low levels of both national and international trust in Iran, there seems to be a unique opportunity for the government of Iran to restore the national trust that has been damaged throughout the years. Since Iranians are facing explicit threats and clear malevolence from the West, this common outside threat could make them more than ever inclined to trust their in-groups and their leaders and to unite together against outside pressures (see Brewer, 1999; Greenaway & Cruwys, 2019). However, the dire economic condition and other national problems would make it easier for long-standing enemies to provoke Iranians against their government and increase their influence on Iran. Therefore, it seems completely up to the Iranian rulers to either restore the lost trust of the people or let foreign countries take advantage of the current unstable situation.

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Yamaguchi, S. (1994). Collectivism among the Japanese: A perspective from the self. In U. Kim et al. (Eds.), Individualism and collectivism: Theory, method, and applications (Cross-cultural research and methodology series, Vol. 18) (pp. 175–188). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zamahani, M. (2016). The political and socio-economic causes and consequences of corruption case study in Iran. International Business Management, 10(7), 1263–1269. Zapata-Phelan, C.  P., Colquitt, J.  A., Scott, B.  A., & Livingston, B. (2009). Procedural justice, interactional justice, and task performance: The mediating role of intrinsic motivation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108(1), 93–105. Zenasni, F., Besançon, M., & Lubart, T. (2008). Creativity and tolerance of ambiguity: An empirical study. Journal of Creative Behavior, 41(1), 61–72. Amirreza Talaei  holds a doctorate in Applied Social Psychology, specializing in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Windsor, and a Partner and the Director of Applied Research at E.M. Vokes, Ph.D. & Associates, an organization development and change management consulting firm, based in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He has been involved in the development and advancement of applied theories that have been used in training and coaching of organizational leaders at different levels. His main research and practice interests revolve around personality, with a focus on the dark side of personality and subclinical personality disorders in the workplace, leader counterproductive work behaviors, motivational processes, and cross-cultural psychology. He takes an interdisciplinary approach to organizational phenomena and uses both quantitative and qualitative methods in his research and practice. Seyed Esmaeil Hashemi  is Associate Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran. His research focus is mainly on contextual performance and job attitudes. He is currently Managing Editor of the Iranian biannual Journal of Industrial and Organizational Psychology Studies.

Chapter 6

Examining and Understanding the Current State of Trust in the United States Christopher R. Leupold

Abstract  This chapter will serve as an overview of trust in the United States, with a particular consideration of how the social phenomenon can be understood within the nation’s cultural context. Broadly speaking, culture can informally be thought of as members’ agreement on “the way things are done” in their particular society. Such a common framework and understanding of culture are essential for members to effectively communicate and operate (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010); without it, conflict, if not chaos, would result from misinterpretations and confusion as to what is acceptable or not. Likewise, trust is essential for people to function in a society. Without trust, people would be unwilling or unable to put their faith in others which would diminish not only the quality of relationships but also the productive benefits that only operating together can bring. Keywords  Trust · Trustworthiness · United States · Societal culture

This chapter will serve as an overview of trust in the United States, with a particular consideration of how the social phenomenon can be understood within the nation’s cultural context. Broadly speaking, culture can informally be thought of as members’ agreement on “the way things are done” in their particular society. Such a common framework and understanding of culture are essential for members to effectively communicate and operate (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010); without it, conflict, if not chaos, would result from misinterpretations and confusion as to what is acceptable or not. Likewise, trust is essential for people to function in a society. Without trust, people would be unwilling or unable to put their faith in others which would diminish not only the quality of relationships but also the productive benefits that only operating together can bring.

C. R. Leupold () Elon University, Elon, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7_6

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As is the case with all nations, the United States has an established culture that is at various levels different from the others. In order to understand trust behavior in the United States, one must first understand the cultural context in which it takes place. This chapter will begin with an overview of US culture and its standing on established cultural dimensions. Next, one of the most established theoretical and validated models of trust will be introduced and will serve as a framework for discussing trust research in US institutions and places of employment. Using this model, an examination of variables that have been found to be linked to trust as antecedents as well as outcomes will be summarized. From there, a summary of research findings on general trust attitudes and behaviors in the United States will follow that highlights which agencies (i.e., government, religion, education) are more likely to be trusted by US citizens and which are not. In addition, a summary of research findings on trust in the workplace will be presented. Finally, the chapter will end with a summary and implications for the future of trust in work settings and the US society as a whole.

The Cultural Context of the United States For much of the last century and particularly since World War II, the United States has been at the forefront of the global stage. Deemed for decades as a “world super power,” the nation is a fairly young one, particularly in the context of the active history to which it has been witness. Formed by 13 original colonies who gained independence from England during the late eighteenth century, today, the United States is generally recognized as the most dominant, powerful, and influential nation on the globe. The impact of the United States on global matters is undeniable, which to its allies is good news and to its critics is unfortunate, and to note, there is no shortage of either anywhere in the world. A democratic republic of roughly 320,000,000 people, the United States is slightly smaller than the size of Europe. The nation is composed of 50 states and among them is a collection of fairly distinct regions and subpopulations that often contain subcultures within it. At a basic level, the nation can loosely be divided into five general regions – the Northeast, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Southwest, and the West. However, much finer distinctions can be made within each of these and often proudly and competitively so by their inhabitants. While this diversity has often been cited as an overall strength of the nation, it has admittedly often made a common national cultural profile harder to identify. With this in mind, this chapter will describe US culture today in the context of its entire population. Using the analogy of a computer, Hofstede et al. (2010) liken culture to a type of “software of the mind” that governs all of one’s behavior, defining it as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others” (p. 6). Of course, individuals’ unique personality and personal experiences will influence their perceptions of social phenomenon, creating some variance in how people specifically perceive the same culture. Nonetheless,

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the broad patterns of how a common group of people think and feel across a culture provide general parameters of a society’s culture that is shared among members. Hofstede et al. (2010) explain that cultures manifest themselves through four major areas: values, rituals, heroes, and symbols. Of these, values are arguably the most defining element, as they are at the core of culture and reflect what is considered most important or preferred; in essence, they serve as the guiding forces for decision-­ making and other behavioral tendencies. While there are many values in the United States, with many specific to particular regions, perhaps two that have been historically most generalized across the nation and subgroups would be democracy and individual freedom. The nation was expressly founded on the principle of democracy, as the famous words “We the people…” begin the most important governing document of the country, the US Constitution. Freedom and individualism reflect the importance of pursuing one’s own goals and setting one’s own life’s course without interference from others, so long as these things are consistent with what is outlined in the Constitution. Whereas these ideas initially emanated from a desire to break from England’s colonial control, the civil rights movement spearheaded by Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s redefined them and demanded that they be extended to include all citizens, including those who had (and admittedly still are) been marginalized as the nation evolved and worked to overcome its nefarious history of overt discrimination and slavery. Hofstede et al. (2010) define rituals as “collective activities that are technically superfluous to reach desired ends but that, within a culture, are considered socially essential” (p. 9). Standing for the national anthem before major public events, having barbecues on the fourth of July (Independence Day), and hosting tailgate parties before watching the Super Bowl (National Football League championship game) are a few of the rituals within the fabric of US society that have historically united people and fostered a common cultural identity. Heroes are individuals who are role models recognized for their characteristics that reflect the culture and its values. George Washington has traditionally been considered a hero for his courage, military skill, and statesmanship as the nation’s first president, as has Patrick Henry, a Founding Father who famously cried, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Babe Ruth was a hero for rising from humble beginnings to become the most skilled and popular athlete in the nation’s then most popular sport, baseball. Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. have traditionally been heroes for their perseverance in working toward justice for all and Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and other industrialists for their innovations and efforts to develop a capitalist society. Finally, symbols are words, gestures, or objects that convey a deeper meaning by members of a culture. Historically, the US flag and national bird, the bald eagle, were powerful symbols of national identity, and phrases such as “Don’t tread on me!” “E pluribus unum,” and “And justice for all” conveyed the fundamental values and character of the nation. Actually, the examples above might be better labeled as historically assumed values, rituals, heroes, and symbols of the United States as defined by the majority of people, namely, White Christians who lived under a patriarchal system. Over the decades, the US population has become increasingly diverse and has questioned and

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even openly challenged how culture should be defined. For example, in some circles, George Washington is now vilified for owning slaves, as are industrial capitalists for creating a system that dehumanized workers and set the stage for dramatic income inequality. Recently, a major national controversy centered on certain people’s (particularly athletes’) refusal to stand for the national anthem as a means to protest perceived social injustices and what they believed to be hypocrisy in the song’s themes about freedom. For that matter, baseball is no longer the most popular national pastime. And of course, different regions and ethnic groups all possess their own unique subcultures with values, heroes, rituals, and symbols, sometimes being at great odds or even direct contrast to others. A striking example is the Confederate flag, which is seen as a symbol of southern pride and state’s rights by some but as a point-blank reminder of the evil of the nation’s centuries of slavery by others. As such, one can argue that there is much less of a common, defined culture that connects everyone in the United States. Indeed, a growing challenge in the United States is to strike a balance between national identity and culture while affording people the freedom and opportunity to maintain and promote their subgroup’s culture, whether it is based on region, race, religion, gender, politics, or some other identity. Freedom and individuality are still core values, although how they are operationalized has evolved. While acknowledging these differences, what follows is a summary of a generalized US culture.

US Standings on Cultural Dimensions A number of approaches have been used as a means to quantitatively describe and differentiate societal cultures, many of which employ dimensional constructs that indirectly assess beliefs and behaviors that underscore values, rituals, heroes, and symbols. One of the most widely used models was developed by the world-renowned cross-cultural researcher Geert Hofstede. Based on over 50  years of extensive research and assessing and validating profiles of dozens of cultures around the globe, Hofstede and his colleagues identified six dimensions of culture at the national level (Hofstede Insights, n.d.). Table 6.1 displays the United States’ stand-

Table 6.1  Comparison of the United States to other nations using country comparison tool at hofstede-insights.com (https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison) Power distance Individualism Masculinity Uncertainty avoidance Long-term orientation Indulgence

United States 40 91 62 46 26 68

United Kingdom 35 89 66 35 51 69

Canada 39 80 52 48 36 68

Russia 93 39 36 95 81 20

Japan 45 46 95 92 88 42

Egypt 70 25 45 80 7 4

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ing on these dimensions, along with scores for the same dimensions of a sampling of other nations. The first is power distance, which refers to the extent to which societal members accept the unequal distribution of power. According to Hofstede Insights, the United States scores a 40 (out of 100), suggesting that the citizens there are less comfortable with power concentrated only in the hands of a few, certainly much more so than historically less democratic nations such as Egypt and Russia. Individualism, often contrasted with collectivism, is the value placed on individual achievement and independence; in other words, individualism is the “I,” and collectivism is the “we.” Its score of 91 indicates that the United States is one of the most individualist nations in the world and places a premium on self-reliance and merit-based reward. “Pulling one’s self up by one’s bootstraps” is a popular expression that illustrates the historical expectations of self-sufficiency and creating one’s own destiny that typifies US culture. Masculinity, often contrasted with femininity, refers to the importance society places on achievement, competition, and goal orientation. Here the United States is more moderate, certainly in contrast to the collectivist Japan where the focus is instead on harmony and the motivation to be happy rather than successful. Uncertainty avoidance refers to how societal members approach the future and ambiguity in general and to what extent they are it is accepting of new ideas and ways of doing things. With a score of 46, the US culture is one that is generally open to new ideas while still reserving a slight degree of caution. Compared to Japan and Russia that focus more energy on managing or even trying to control the future, the United States is much more inclined to pursue innovation and feel stagnant without change. Countries that score very low on long-term orientation such as Egypt tend to be normative and value long-standing traditions over preparing for the future (usually through education). Hofstede Insights (n.d.) notes that the United States’ fairly low score of 26 is largely driven by its people’s active practice of religion, as the nation “is one of the only ‘Caucasian’ countries in the world where, since the 20th century, visiting church has increased.” At the same time, importance is also placed on questioning things and learning as a means to prepare for, and likely change, the future, certainly much more so than in Egypt. Finally, indulgence is the extent to which individuals can delay gratification and resist impulses. With a score of 68, the United States is rather high compared to other nations, suggesting a degree of impulsivity and wanting immediate rewards and indulgences. At the other end of the spectrum is Egypt, where restraint is far more valued and practiced. From Table 6.1, the patterns between the United States and its northern neighbor Canada are quite similar. Although quite individualistic by world standards, Canada is a bit lower than the United States on individualism; the former’s relatively more socialist and welfare state policies speak to a slightly greater collectivist mindset. Both nations are very similar to the United Kingdom, which makes sense given their historical origins and the fact that their present-day cultures evolved from, and still have, strong vestiges of the UK culture of which many of their early compatriots were a part. Nonetheless, variations, even slight ones, in profile patterns confirm that the US culture is indeed distinct from other nations, even Canada (which also

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has a strong French influence) and the United Kingdom. The most distinguishing aspect is the extremely high sense of individualism, which when coupled with the high level of masculinity suggests that the core of US culture is predicated on a sense of individual competitiveness and the desire to succeed and achieve rewards on the basis of one’s own merits. At the same time, a higher i­ndulgence score and lower long-term orientation score suggest that such rewards are sought immediately. Finally, a lower score on power distance reflects a perceived sense of egalitarianism and a willingness to challenge authority. This pattern, although generalized across such a vast population that includes many subpopulations, by and large still reflects the “traditional” cultural values upon with the nation was developed. However, as noted earlier, there is likely greater variability in citizens ascribing to them today than in the past.

Literature Review A Framework for Understanding the Trust Process Academic disciplines conceptualize trust differently, but organizational psychologists generally frame trust “in terms of attributes of trustors and trustees and focus upon a host of internal cognitions that personal attributions yield” (Rousseau et al., 1996, p. 393). This definition requires that attention be given to both the trustor and the trustee and not just the trustor. Many prominent trust authors such as Levine, Bitterly, Cohen, and Schweitzer (2018) and Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995) have incorporated both parties in their models to explain the trust phenomenon. Also, whereas early models tended to focus only on dispositional factors, these more complete models incorporate both state and contextual factors to understand trust. When one considers that trust requires that the trustor make an active decision to trust another person based on the information they have at hand (Li, 2012; Singh, 2012), it becomes more obvious as to why both parties and contextual factors should be considered in the trust process. Even a cursory literature search will quickly show one that there are indeed a vast array of definitions for trust. While the science and art of creating operational definitions could easily be a complete chapter on its own, for the purposes of this chapter, the definition of trust is “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party” (Mayer et al., 1995, p. 712). A key element of this definition that is also found in definitions of other prominent trust theorists (e.g., Levine et al., 2018; Rousseau et al., 1996) is vulnerability of the trustor. In other words, according to this definition, for trust to occur, the trustor must assume a degree of risk or potential harm in making the choice to put their fate (at least to some degree) in a trustee’s hands.

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Levine et al. (2018) note that Mayer et al.’s (1995) seminal model has been the dominant paradigm for understanding trustworthiness; Schoorman, Mayer, and Davis (2007) echoed the pervasiveness of the model in research, stating that it has served as the primary framework for trust researchers from a myriad of disciplines and cultures around the world. In response to what the authors perceived as a scarcity of research on trust at that time, Mayer et  al. (1995) drew upon multiple ­disciplines to create a general universal model that was applicable to the broad range of interpersonal contexts. According to Mayer et al. (1995), analysis of trust begins first with the trustor and specifically their propensity to trust. A dispositional variable that is influenced by personality, cultural backgrounds, and personal experiences, the propensity to trust is simply a “generalized willingness to trust others” (p. 715) without having any additional information about them or their trustworthiness. Individuals can vary greatly on their propensity to trust, which can lead to different individuals making different choices about whether to trust a common trustee in a common situation. For example, someone who has an accepting and inviting disposition and had previous experiences where trusting another person led to positive outcomes would have a greater propensity to trust than someone who is naturally cynical and has been taken advantage of in the past. The next factor in Mayer et al.’s (1995) model to consider is the perceived trustworthiness of the individual to be trusted (i.e., trustee) in the eyes of the trustor. Based on their previous research, the authors concluded that one’s trustworthiness is ultimately determined by the trustor’s assessment of the trustee on three factors: ability, benevolence, and integrity. Ability refers to the extent to which the trustor believes that the trustee possesses the constellation of skills, knowledge, experience, and/or other qualities that make them competent in a specific domain that is important to the given situation. The trustor’s perception that one has a high level of ability increases the latter’s trustworthiness, as it increases the trustor’s confidence that the trustee will be capable to effectively address the particular situation without causing unintended harm. Benevolence refers to the extent to which the trustor believes that the trustee’s intentions toward the trustor are good and will benefit (or not harm) the trustor. This implies that there is some sort of connection or attachment between the two parties, although it need not be extremely close; in essence, this attachment could exist on the basis of a shared belief where the parties do not even know each other personally. Whereas a positive evaluation of a trustee’s perceived ability implies that they won’t unintentionally harm the trustor, the perception is the trustee’s benevolence implies that they won’t intentionally do so; it is the belief that the trustor wants to “do good” to the trustor (p. 718). Finally, integrity refers to the extent to which the trustor believes that the trustee possesses a similar set of values and adheres to a set of principles and morals that the trustor deems acceptable, to the extent that the parties’ integrity is perceived as congruent (regardless of what constitutes that integrity), in which more likely trust is to occur. Support for Mayer et al.’s model is fairly strong, as meta-analytic studies have found that the trustor’s propensity to trust (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002) as well as their perceptions of the trustee’s trustworthiness (Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007) were indeed determinants of trust. Likewise, a trustor’s perception of the trustee’s ability,

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benevolence, and integrity also led to trust (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002; Colquitt et al., 2007). In what they claim to be a more complete model of trust, Levine et al. (2018) propose a similar model in which a trustor’s decision to trust is a function of dispositional and contextual factors, including a dispositional trustee factor, guilt proneness. However, promising as it might be, the model is still new and untested; as such, Mayer et al.’s (1995) heavily cited model will serve as the framework for the following discussion of trust. A trustee’s (i.e., person to be trusted) perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity are independent factors which collectively determine their trustworthiness. When all are high, trust is more likely to occur; however, if there are discrepancies, the trustor may place greater emphasis on one or another of the factors. Mayer et al. (1995) posit that integrity is the most salient of the three early in relationships and that benevolence becomes increasingly important as the relationship matures; this has been supported (see Schoorman et al., 2007). Regardless, the influence of this collection of trustworthiness factors on resultant trust is mitigated by the trustor’s propensity to trust. In other words, even if one perceives another to have high levels of ability, benevolence, and integrity, if their propensity to trust is low, then it is still less likely that the perceiver will trust the other person’s despite these merits. At the same time, someone who has a higher propensity to trust may be more inclined to trust another individual even if the other person’s ability, benevolence, and integrity are lower. In short, the authors’ Mayer et al. (1995) model proposes that these factors of the trustee’s perceived trustworthiness and the trustor’s propensity to trust will determine whether the latter will trust the former. Mayer et al. (1995) distinguish between trust (a willingness to be vulnerable) and actually engaging in trusting behaviors (actually making one’s self vulnerable) when there is actual risk at stake. Before committing to trusting behavior, one assesses the perceived risk involved by considering the potential positive and negative consequences and their respective likelihood. In addition, the level of trust the trustor has (i.e., a function of trustee’s trustworthiness and the trustor’s propensity to trust) plays a role in how much risk one is willing to take. If trust is high, the likelihood of engaging in trusting behavior (or as the authors refer to it, “risk taking in relationship” or RTR) is higher than if it is low, even if the perceived risk is high. If the perceived risk is low, however, one might engage in trusting behaviors even if trustworthiness is low. The trustor’s RTR with the trustee is the proposed outcome of trust in this model and is a function of both trust and perceived risk. The main outcome in Mayer et al.’s (1995) model is the trustor ultimately making a decision about whether to engage in a trusting relationship or, in other words, allow themselves to be vulnerable. Levine et  al. (2018) identify three possible ­outcomes that are a function of agreement between the trustor’s perception of the trustee’s trustworthiness and the trustee’s actual trustworthiness: misplaced trust (perception of trustworthiness is greater than it really is), accurate trust (perception of trustworthiness is equal to what it really is), and/or misplaced skepticism

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(­ perception of trustworthiness is less than it really is). Mayer et al. (1995) are clear to point out that many contextual factors can affect the outcome at any point in the process, including the antecedents of trustworthiness and propensity to trust, as well as perception of risk level and availability of other options to the trustor. Also, as more exchanges between parties and relationship occur over time, perceptions of these variables may shift either positively or negatively. Clearly, a trustor’s interpretation of the context is critical to the entire trust process and model. Mayer and colleagues (Schoorman et al., 2007) revisited their original model and its subsequent developments and introduced new propositions and areas for future research. In particular, they address cross-cultural implications for trust. Noting that by 2007, 20% of the 1100 studies listed in Google Scholar that cited Mayer et al.’s (1995) original paper were written in languages other than English, the authors recognized culture as another important contextual variable in their model. They note that culture can influence the propensity to trust, as evidenced by the observation that general trust of strangers varies in cultures around the globe. As one example, cultures that are more task-oriented tend to be more trusting of strangers than cultures that are more relationship-oriented. As another example, the authors note that “masculine” cultures place greater emphasis on the trustworthiness factor of ability than benevolence. The authors note that although these examples are broad generalizations, they nonetheless see the direct applicability and importance of culture to understanding trust in its full context. Other researchers have similarly supported the idea that trust is a decision that is influenced by cultural context as well as a trustor’s inherent disposition. For example, Yuki, Maddux, Brewer, and Takemura (2005) found that western cultures such as the United States were more inclined to trust strangers based on some shared category membership, whereas Japanese culture was more inclined to form trust based on the perceived likelihood of sharing some sort of interpersonal link. In essence, US citizens rely more on social identity and categorize others as “in-group” (people who are “more like them”) or “out-group” (people who aren’t), whereas Japanese focus more on relationships and see themselves embedded in social networks regardless of perceive similarity. Singh (2012) points out the importance of exogenous social interaction effects or influences that originate from broad cultural characteristics and influences that make one more or less prone to trust others. Singh (2012) also notes the role of endogenous social interaction effects, where trust occurs if one’s inclination to engage in trusting behavior is a reaction to another person’s demonstrated trusting behaviors toward them. Again, these are examples of theories that highlight the importance of cultural influences on trust, making it a much more complex relational phenomenon than individuals simply having a natural tendency to trust.

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Practical Implications and Application What and Whom Do US Citizens Trust? General Trends  In their summary of survey results obtained by the esteemed global communications marketing firm, Edelman, Friedman (2018) right away refers readers to the United States’ motto “In God we trust.” However, from there, he summarizes results that indicate that US citizens may trust God less now than in the past, and such a decline is reflective of an overall decline in trust in general. Despite a periodic increase after certain major events (e.g., after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001), the overall trend is that trust levels in the United States have been steadily declining since the mid-1960s, and according to Friedman, trust is currently dropping even lower at an accelerated pace. He cites the head of the research firm, Richard Edelman, who gave the following sobering analysis: “This is the first time that a massive drop in trust has not been linked to a pressing economic issue like [Japan’s] Fukushima nuclear disaster…. In fact, it’s the ultimate irony that it’s happening at a time of prosperity, with the stock market and unemployment rates in the U.S. at record highs” (p. 3). During the 1960s, an overall increase in social conscience activities and more open and aggressive questioning of authority and societal norms in general reflected a cultural revolution of sorts. In short, the era brought a new progressive mindset that was in contrast to the previous, more conservative, one. Prior to the decade’s hallmark pieces of legislation, most notably the Civil Rights Act that fundamentally redefined the meanings of equality and freedom and challenged the past and prevailing national culture, there was a more common cultural mindset, at least among the majority and dominant population groups. To some, the present-day United States was established in the 1960s when it ushered in a new era that, for the first time in the nation’s history, expressly ensured that freedom and civil rights are applied to all citizens, including historically marginalized people. Positive as these and many other changes were, they effected fundamental changes to a system that had been much more agreed upon and understood. To be clear, this is not to say that it was the civil rights movement or any particular initiative or event during the decade that began a decline of national trust. Rather, it was the general trend where more diverse ideas about cultural norms and ideals directly challenged the existing parameters of culture at the national level. With newly introduced value systems and perspectives came more opportunities for different interpretations of and disagreements over them. Ripple effects are evident today, if not exacerbated by the even wider diversity of ideas and attitudes in a nation of over 300 million people. While the infusion of new perspectives has brought many benefits to the United States, it is difficult to ignore that the era of protesting traditional thinking and culture in the United States coincided with the transition point where trust began and has continued to trend downward.

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What follows is a summary of survey results from the 2014 World Values Survey (WVS; Inglehart et  al., 2014) and Edelman’s 2019 Trust Barometer (Edelman, 2019) on trust attitudes in the United States. Most of these findings are an aggregate across the nation so they do not generally reflect regional or other certain demographic differences. Also, it is important to note that the surveys measured citizens’ attitudes toward trust and not actual behavior. Nonetheless, the data provide insight into citizens’ mindsets as to why overall institutional-based trust (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1996) has been lower than it has ever been in the United States. Politics, Government, and the Media  Trust in the US government is extremely low, as almost two-thirds of WVS respondents indicated that they were untrusting toward it (i.e., reported they had “not very much” trust or “none at all”). Even more stark was trust in political parties, where 85% of respondents indicated they lacked trust in them. Moreover, in both cases, these numbers are 4% higher (indicating lower trust) than even they were in the WVS survey 5 years earlier. Friedman (2018) noted that only one-third of individuals in the United States trust their government “to do the right thing.” That national politics have become particularly more divisive over recent decades is generally accepted as fact; many would agree that this has been further exacerbated since 2016 with the election of Donald Trump as president. Not coincidentally, more strident and polarizing positions have been taken not just by politicians, but often by the media as well. In the age of social media where media outlets compete for audiences, the press has come under scrutiny for the perceived biases and inaccuracies in their reporting. Fewer than 13% of respondents indicated trust in the press, which is lower than the 15% that was reported 8 years earlier. Trust in television is slightly better, but for every one person who is trusting of it, three people are not. In an age of rapid globalization, there is more distrust (61.4%) than trust (35.9%) in the United Nations which again may be indicative of a suspicion of government bodies in general. That said, this was a 3.4% increase, which, although small, suggests that trust for a global body is growing while trust for a national one is dropping. A similar increase (39.6–45.1%) in trust for the civil service was also observed, suggesting that government deliverers and providers are more trusted than policy makers. Many people would agree that in today’s climate, more than ever, many major media outlets are more influenced by politics and vice versa. Moreover, while disagreements have always been inherent in politics, a growing perception is that political discourse has become more of a competition than collaboration with a willing and ready media to report it with a particular potential slant. Friedman (2018) believes that individual politics and their respective perceptions of “fake news” (now a frequently used expression) are at the root of much national distrust and warns that the United States is suffering from a “truth decay” in general. The result, he notes, is a “lack of objective facts and rational discourse.” This in turn can cause people’s reluctance to accept reported news because of their distrust of an outlet’s perceived particular slant or journalism in general. The Edelman survey notes the pervasiveness and impact of this issue, as 70% of respondents worried about “fake

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news” being a political weapon and 63% reported difficulty discerning between fake news and good journalism (Friedman, 2018). The consensus is that the public is more suspicious of today’s media’s goals, believing them to be more about increasing ratings and circulation and doing so through sensationalism that supports a particular political ideology (Friedman, 2018). Interestingly enough, in examining the Edelman results, Friedman (2018) notes that a direct relationship exists between trust in the government and trust in the media. This suggests that it is more the individual or party in office that is trusted and how the media covers them, rather than in either institution itself. Trump voters, who are more likely to accuse the mainstream media of negative bias, are twice as more likely than Hillary Clinton voters to distrust the media (Friedman, 2018). Other Institutions  Unquestionably, the institution that garners the most trust in the United States is the military, where 81.6% of respondents in the WVS indicated their trust in it. This is one of the very few exceptions where trust has actually increased (from 78.0%) from 4 years ago. Although there are very likely ethnic differences, trust in the police has also remained generally favorable (68.3%) and generally unchanged from 5  years prior. Interestingly, police are more trusted than courts and the justice system (54.8% favorable, unchanged); however, again, this may likely vary among particular demographic groups. Universities (62.6%) and charitable organizations (60.6%) are both fairly well trusted, as are churches (57.6%). However, whereas trust in the former institutions remains unchanged, trust in religious organizations has dropped 6.5%. Possible reasons for this are the increasing diversity of religion in what used to be, until fairly recently, a primarily Christian nation, as well as stereotypes (e.g., association of Islam with terrorism) and the uncovering of scandals (e.g., history of abuse in the Catholic church). Trust in big organizations mirrors that of trust in government, where the people who do trust it are outnumbered by those who don’t by a 2–1 margin. Banks are slightly more trustworthy (39.8%) than big organizations, but the level is still low. Even a more dramatic effect of political affiliation is on organized labor, where only 24.5% of respondents saw unions as trustworthy. Taken together, these indicate that US citizens are more trusting of businesses and banks than labor. Trust in environmental organizations is evenly split, which like many of these issues is likely a function of political affiliation. Trust in women’s organizations is slightly higher (51.1%), which is almost 2% higher than it was in the earlier survey. To explain the lack of trust among US citizens, particularly when the economy is good, Friedman (2018) points to a general sense of chaos in the nation as compared to other world powers like China or Russia. And this chaos is primarily a result of people’s worry that “truth itself seems more uncertain” (p. 11). Demographic Patterns in Trust  Morgan (n.d.) reports on recent Pew Research findings that similarly found a drop in national trust, from when 56% of the people agreed that “most people can be trusted” in the mid-1960s to only 32% in 2014. Generally speaking, males were slightly more likely to trust other people than

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females, as were married individuals. Those who have never been married are less trusting than those who have divorced, however. Much has been made about the diversity of generations and their attitudes toward life. Generally speaking, older generations (e.g., Silents and Baby Boomers) are more likely to trust other people than younger ones (e.g., Gen Xers and Millennials). Results indicated a positive relationship between trust and health, as well as between trust and happiness. Unfortunately, a digitized society often has the effect of reducing social interaction and thus trust. People who were satisfied with their wealth were more trusting than those who weren’t, and college-educated citizens were more trusting than the less educated. That said, the United States is now the least trusting informed public (i.e., college educated, regular consumers of news, and in the top 25% wealth bracket) among the 28 nations surveyed. The strongest correlate of trust, however, was ethnicity. Whites were the most trusting and 25% more likely to trust other people than non-Whites. Blacks were the least trusting ethnic group, where only 15% said other people can be trusted.

Summary of Who and What is Trusted By and large, survey results indicate an overall low and decreasing level of trust among US citizens. It appears that this decrease in trust reflects an overall sense of negativity in general, as a recent Gallup poll (Saad, 2018) found that surveys of US citizens’ “confidence in” various institutions had similar patterns to their trust in them. Trust is considerably higher in the United States when the focus is on an individual person. Rousseau et  al. (1996) refer to this as relational trust. Friedman (2018) posits that people are more inclined to trust agencies and people with whom they see and interact, and the WVS results support this. Over 90% of respondents indicated that they are likely to completely trust or somewhat trust someone they know personally; this increases to 95% for family. Almost no one completely trusts someone they meet for the first time, and only 35% trust somewhat according to the survey. Interestingly, this figure is lower than the 66% of people who responded that they would at least somewhat trust someone from another nation and 69% who would someone from another religion. The survey results referenced above were purely descriptive and did not incorporate a formal theoretical model of the trust process or often even provide a formalized definition for trust. Nonetheless, in the absence of empirical tests of potential influences on trust, one might at least consider if and how Hofstede Insight’s cultural dimensions played a role. In response to the heightened partisanship and “uncertainty of truth” at the national level, individualist people may feel that more obstacles and confusion are preventing them from pursuing their personal goals. From an indulgence standpoint, such an environment may frustrate people who desire immediate action and tangible rewards; perhaps this has caused them to not trust or even blame institutions for creating what they see as hindrances to faster progress. The other defining dimension of US culture, power distance, may play a

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role because people feel less obliged to be passive agents or simply defer to the wishes and activities of powerful institutions. People in the United States greatly value democracy and freedom and thus suspect when they perceive agencies being obstacles to them. People want to control their own destinies and are likely very vocal sooner rather than later when they feel that they are being marginalized. By and large, the culture of the United States today and perhaps in part to vestiges of the active protest activities and mindset that bubbled up in the 1960s is one in which people want individual control, want it immediately and without interference, and will openly challenge when they do not have it. Of course, these are quite simplified and generalized possible cultural explanations for very complex phenomena. But nonetheless, such questions are valid in order to understand the influences of cultural context on trust and all social behavior.

Trust in US Work Settings As important as examining individuals’ trust attitudes and behavior toward institutions at a national level is examining trust in the organizations where they directly interact with others on an everyday basis – their work settings. Rousseau et al. (1996) emphasize this point, claiming that, regardless of a discipline’s or researcher’s orientation, “we share the root assumption that trust is psychological and important to organizational life” (p. 395). The work setting is an important context for trust research, as individuals typically spend a substantial portion of their time at work. Moreover, the consequences can be substantial as work settings usually provide the economic means for people to live; as such, at least to the individual, trust and other proximal interpersonal relationships can arguably play a bigger role in their everyday lives than more distal ones with institutions like the government. Over 20 years ago, when considering the then trends in workforce composition and organizational practices in the United States, Mayer et al. (1995) predicted that trust would become an even more important phenomenon to study than it already was. Particularly fueled by the greater diversity in personnel and movements toward more participative and empowering management systems, the authors’ prophesy has certainly been realized as reflected by the number of empirical studies that have examined trust as an antecedent, outcome, and mitigating variable in work organizations. The following is a brief overview of some of the trust research in organizational settings that is specific to the United States (i.e., the samples came from US populations).

Trust Between Subordinate and Supervisor The most frequently examined relationship of trust in organizations is that between subordinate and supervisor. Two meta-analyses, Nienaber, Romeike, Searle, and Schewe (2015) and Fulmer and Gelfand (2012), provide excellent summaries of a

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host of studies on this relationship; a sampling of those findings based on US populations is provided here. Studies with US employee samples have found support for the influence of trustors’ dispositions on whether they are more or less inclined to trust their supervisors. Grant and Sumanth (2009) found that individuals who had a high propensity to trust were more likely to trust their leaders, even if the leader was not deemed to be trustworthy, while Simmons, Gooty, Nelson, and Little (2009) found that trustor’s secure attachment style predicted trust in their supervisors. However, most research has focused on the perceived attributes and behaviors of leaders. In looking at trustor factors, research has found that US employees’ perceptions of their supervisors’ trustworthiness factors of ability, benevolence, and integrity indeed increase the likelihood to trust (Colquitt et al., 2007; Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). While some studies examine ability, such as Caldwell, Hayes, and Long (2010) who found employees’ trust in their supervisors was directly related to their perception of the latter’s efficient resource management, the majority of US studies focus on the benevolence and integrity aspects of trustworthiness. For example, in terms of integrity, trust increased when leaders were seen as ethical (Brown, Trevino, & Harrison, 2005) or as organizational stewards (Caldwell et  al., 2010). Likewise, subordinates’ trust was positively related to whether they perceived their supervisors’ values to be similar to theirs (Brashear, Boles, Bellenger, & Brooks, 2003) and when they felt both shared similar perspectives (Levin, Whitener, & Cross, 2006). Perhaps perceived by subordinates as indicators of benevolence because of leaders’ attempts to connect personally with them, supervisors who adapted their leadership style to best suit employees (Roussin, 2008) and demonstrated individualized support toward them (Korsgaard, Brodt, & Whitener, 2002) were more likely to be trusted. Deconinck (2010) also found that subordinates’ perceptions of how much their leader supported them positively influenced their trust in them. Trust for the supervisor is also influenced by less direct contextual influences, as subordinates’ perceptions of overall support from the broader organization increased their trust in their leader (Treadway, Hochwarter, Ferris, Kacmar, Douglas, Ammeter, & Buckley, 2004). Much research in the United States has been conducted on various leadership styles and behaviors which could arguably fit some combination of benevolence and integrity. For example, leaders who empower employees by openly communicating and being transparent with them (Norman, Avolio, & Luthans, 2010) and affording them autonomy (Cho & Park, 2011) or sharing control (Brashear, Manolis, & Brooks, 2005) are more likely to be trusted. In these cases, leaders may be perceived as benevolent because they are demonstrating respect and a desire to involve their people or perhaps as having integrity because these things are simply seen as “the correct” way to treat people fairly. Other variables related to supervisor interactional behaviors have been important determinants of trust. One that has frequently been found to predict trust is organizational justice (e.g., Ambrose & Schminke, 2003; Li & Cropozano, 2009). Subordinates’ perceptions of fairness, whether it involves giving them rewards or punishments, involving them in decisions, or treating them with respect, could influence their assessments of their leader’s benevolence (i.e., treat-

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ing them favorably, showing them respect, involving them) or integrity (i.e., it is simply the right thing to do). Particularly in the United States where democracy is prized and individual rights are expected to be preserved, justice would be expected to play such a role in trust. Colquitt, LePine, Piccolo, Zapata, and Rich (2012a) found that distributive, procedural, and interactional forms of justice were all important factors in trusting leaders; of these, Deconinck (2011) found that interactional justice was the most important. Research has found that subordinates’ trust in their supervisor results in a number of positive outcomes. Lester and Brower (2003), Palanski and Yammarino (2011), and Jung and Avolio (2000) found that trust increased the quality of subordinates’ in-role and extra role performance; however, Mayer and Gavin (2005) only found support for the latter. Fulmer and Gelfand (2012) cite Dirks and Ferrin (2002) who conclude that the trust-performance relationship is weak  – at least in the ­proximal sense – but perhaps has a more distal impact. Pappas and Flaherty (2008) did find that trust in the supervisor increased subordinates’ engagement. Other findings suggest employees have more positive attitudes as a result of trust in their supervisors, including greater satisfaction with the supervisor (Jung & Avolio, 2000), less inclination to attribute negative events to the supervisor (Korsgaard et al., 2002), more feedback-seeking behavior (Hays & Williams, 2011), and higher ratings of supervisors’ interactional justice (Holtz & Harold, 2008). The benefits of a trusting subordinate-supervisor relationship extend beyond that dyad, including increases in subordinates’ feelings of support from the organization (Byrne, Pitts, Chiaburu, & Steiner, 2011), organizational citizenship behaviors (Brower, Lester, Korsgaard, & Dineen, 2009), and willingness to share information with their supervisor (Burke, Sims, Lazzara, & Salas, 2007). Finally, Burke et  al. (2007) found evidence that trust in a supervisor resulted in improved performance at the organizational level in terms of quality and quantity. All of these examples are outcomes of trust that, according to Mayer et al.’s (1995) model, emanate from employee’s (trustor) propensity to trust and their perceptions of their supervisor’s (trustee) trustworthiness.

Other Trust Findings in Organizations Many of the positive patterns of findings of trust between subordinate and supervisor in the United States are similar to other organizational relationships in general. Overall, one’s assessment of their organization’s overall ABI positively predicts trust in the organization (Caldwell & Clapham, 2003). Small talk builds trust between individuals and the organization (Mislin, Campagna, & Bottom, 2011) as does honest communication (Strong, Ringer, & Taylor, 2001). Identification with team members (Colquitt, LePine, Zapata, & Wild, 2012b) and value consensus (Edwards & Cable, 2009) are also predictors of interpersonal trust. Related to this, an organizational climate that promotes commitment-based practices results in greater employee trust (Collins & Smith, 2006). Important outcomes of employees’

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trust in other nonleaders in organizations include increases in help seeking (Hoffman, Lei, & Grant, 2009), organizational identification (Edwards & Cable, 2009), and perceived organizational support (Whitener, 2001). Cole (2018) more recently identified a number of similar themes related to trust in organizational leadership, including respect, loyalty, communication, self-value, mentorship, culture and workplace climate, and professional and personal development. Here again, one sees the importance of trust in the workplace. Metzger (2018) found communication, relationship building, and providing assistance increased trust development, as did perceived competency and dependability of the trustor; Metzger also found that trust increased knowledge sharing within organization. Bachmann, Gillespie, and Priem (2015) present a framework as to how to repair trust in organizations yet note that no single mechanism is likely to be sufficient in doing so. In short, trust can be difficult to earn but perhaps even harder to regain once violated. Trust is key to organizational harmony and effectiveness, and violations of it are difficult to repair (Schweitzer, Hershey, & Bradlow, 2006). Actions that rebuild integrity are particularly important, as promises to change (Schweitzer et al., 2006) and timely and sincere apologies for violations are keys to rebuilding trust that is broken (Tomlinson, Dineen, & Lewicki, 2004). Knowing the trustee to ascertain their ability, benevolence, and integrity is key. With as much opportunity as there is for US organizations to heed this advice, on a larger scale, the same can be said for US institutions where perceived violations of trust have resulted in a growing cultural norm of people’s general mistrust in them.

Summary According to Li (2012), trust is most important when 1) uncertainty (e.g., complexity and ambiguity) of unmet expectations is high, 2) the vulnerability of control (e.g., failure of formal contract) is high, 3) the stakes (e.g., financial loss) of unmet expectation or control failure are high, and 4) long-term interdependence (e.g., reciprocal relationship) is high. Unfortunately, this is much the environment in the United States today that Friedman (2018) describes as unsettled if not chaotic. Even more unfortunately, trust happens to be at a historical national low point. Reflecting on these sobering figures, Friedman (2018) suggests a root cause for the current state of affairs is the US population’s general frustration with, if not outright jaded attitudes toward, knowing what is true anymore. In expressing his concern over people’s confusion and sense of desperation for knowing “the truth,” he quotes Edelman as follows: “We are flailing, and people can’t quite get a sense of reality” (p. 11). This is disturbing, Friedman notes, as “it is no way to live, let alone sustain a democracy” (p.  11). Friedman cites Bersoff, who emphasizes the negative course the United States is following, stating that “the lifeblood of democracy is a common understanding of the facts and information that we can use and then use as a basis for negotiation and compromise. When that goes away, the whole foundation of democracy gets shaken” (p. 3). The question of whether this level of

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distrust is justified and thus what Levine et al. (2018) referred to as “accurate trust” or is not justified, which the authors refer to as “misplaced skepticism,” is an important one. While there may be some legitimate cases for the former, the degree of partisanship and aggressive disagreement on many national issues suggests the latter is at play as well. As to if, when, and how its citizens’ trust can be restored in the United States, these are imposing questions without easy answers. One issue noted earlier is that the nation is not only so geographically large and populous, but that strong subcultures exist within it. While the United States as an aggregate can be described in such ways as low on power distance and high on individualism and indulgence or sharing the values of democracy and freedom, there are differences within the nation, some strikingly so. In addition, contextual variables such as gender, race, and region, just to name a few, likely have strong direct and indirect bearings on individuals’ propensity to trust particular institutions. With so many diverse ideas and opinions, amplified by the fact that most all are expressed forcefully and loudly and sometimes even in a combative tone, a question for the nation is whether a more common ground will be established that will allow for greater homogeneity in values and attitudes. Until some movement is made in this direction, restoring trust at the national level currently appears to be a monumental challenge. Most of the studies on US employees and organizations cited here come from two excellent metaanalyses (Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012; Nienaber et al., 2015) that were published seven and 5 years ago; since then, there have been fewer studies. While trust in general in the United States was already low during the time of those publications, it is lower yet today. One may wonder whether these work setting findings would be influenced by this. However, as many of the findings over the years appear to be generally consistent even while national trusting was falling, a spillage effect may not be so pronounced. The findings about trust in work settings appear more encouraging than trust in societal institutions and general trust in people, as there is at least a demonstrable existence of trust to begin with. Perhaps trust is higher in the workplace because individuals, to some extent, can self-select into them on the basis of their organization’s values and purpose. For example, an environmental advocate might have lower trust of an oil company since it does not align with environmentalist values and thus might be less inclined to seek employment there. Likewise, trustors and trustees interacting directly and more frequently with each other and working for the same organization and ostensibly toward the same common goals may serve as vehicles to increase perceived integrity and benevolence. Nonetheless, increasing competition among organizations on national and global levels should force US organizations to look for ways to optimize any potential advantage  – and this includes enhancing trust within them. According to Mayer et al.’s (1995) model, two ways to do this would be to increase employees’ propensity to trust and increase their perceptions of others’ ability, benevolence, and integrity. As noted, earlier, benevolence and integrity appear to be relatively more important in work settings as they are bigger questions as a trustee’s perceived character is likely more questioned than their ability. A promising line of findings discussed here is those that show the importance of organizational justice and perceived

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support to a willingness of an employee to trust. Particularly in the United States where a premium is placed on individual freedom, democracy, and fairness, employers should ensure that they indeed are engaging in organizational practices and individual behaviors that convey their genuine commitment to respecting the dignity and contributions of all employees. Repeated interactions that manifest organizational justice may also in turn over time improve employees’ propensity to trust at least their organization. Fulmer and Gelfand (2012) note that a wide number of leadership styles are believed to be related to subordinates’ trust. Among others, they cite authentic leadership (see Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, and May, 2004), transformational leadership (see Jung, Yammarino, and Lee, 2009), and servant leadership (see Van Dierendonck, 2011). Each of these relatively more modern approaches calls upon leaders to manage relationships with others (particularly subordinates) in ways that directly align with what employees value and what they require before they are willing to trust. Briefly, authenticity requires a leader to be genuine, honest, and values-­ based and to recognize the importance of creating and maintaining healthy and mutually satisfying relationships with others. It requires a degree of humility, as does servant leadership where the leader’s fundamental purpose is to lead by serving others in order that they be successful. Transformational leaders are able to inspire employees to redefine themselves to attain their fullest potential and do this by articulating an inspiring vision for the future, creating personally meaningful motivating messages, and actively challenging people to be part of the process. All of these approaches pave a way for followers to view their leaders more positively in terms of ability, benevolence, and integrity. All approaches are far cries from outdated unilateral and directive styles that were prescribed; rather, they by definition require leaders to do more to involve, support, and even customize their leadership to meet the needs of followers. In turn, particularly for the individualist and achievement-oriented US population of employees, these activities could greatly improve their perceptions of their leader’s trustworthiness. In summary, existing societal-level data makes it easy to see that trust in general is continuing its decline in the United States; unfortunately, with such a large and diverse population, pinpointing the many various societal factors underlying the trend in order to restore trust is far more complicated. While trust in work settings appears to be better and easier to analyze since they are more restrictive and arguably simpler environments to study, organizations must continue to find ways to retain and improve employees’ trust. Despite what are sure to be patterns of distrust and outright violations of trust, one might wonder whether US individuals find a degree of escape or solace in their work settings. As people may feel they have more choice over where to work than the national climate in which they live, they may seek organizations that they believe will provide more tangible evidence of trustworthiness factors. Hopefully, organizations in the United States will engage in more supportive and empowering activities that demonstrate organizational justice, and leaders will practice transformational, authentic, and servant leadership. Not only will such initiatives increase trust and improve organizational functioning and relationships, but perhaps they will serve as an example for national institutions to follow and thereby potentially begin rebuilding citizens’ trust in the nation.

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Christopher Leupold,  is the Isabella Cannon Professor of Leadership and Professor of Psychology at Elon University, located in in North Carolina, U.S. At Elon, Dr. Leupold teaches courses on leadership, teams, organization development, and other topics in his field of industrial/ organizational/psychology. Dr. Leupold is also the Executive Leadership Coach in Residence at Elon’s School of Law, where he works with students on their leadership and professional development. Dr. Leupold’s primary areas of research interest are in leadership and organizational attitudes. He has also consulted to over 100 organizations over the past twenty-five years, primarily in the areas of leadership and organizational development. After earning his BA in psychology at the University of Notre Dame and his MA in industrial/organizational psychology at the University of North Carolina; he earned his PhD in the same field at Wayne State University.

Chapter 7

Canadian Culture and Trust Catherine Burr and Tanja Samardzic

Abstract  Work is a social experience. Regular interaction with clients, co-workers, and supervisors is necessary in order to do our jobs effectively; however, the difference between a positive and a negative work experience may be the extent to which we trust those with whom we interact and the organizations in which we work. Georg Simmel (1950) described trust as “one of the most powerful synthetic forces within society” (p. 318). He posited that trust facilitates social interactions by reducing the uncertainty embedded in how to proceed within those interactions. Niklas Luhmann (1979) stated that as a social tool, trust prevents possible chaos and fear of action. Trust is a key factor in outcomes regarding employee commitment and job satisfaction (Siddiqi & Kharshiing, 2015; Six & Sorge, 2008), which, in turn, predict the well-being and happiness of employees (Bowling, Eschleman, & Wang, 2010). Canadian workers are among the most highly satisfied and engaged in the world (CBC News, 2013). This, then, begs the question: are attitudes of trust affected by cultural characteristics? As Canadians, how do our cultural characteristics contribute to the extent to which we trust the people around us, the officials that govern us, and in particular, the organizations at which we work? To answer those questions, it is necessary to understand that the values and beliefs Canadians hold are unique products of Canada’s history, including its political, economic, and social systems. Keywords  Trust · Trustworthiness · Canada · Values · Societal culture

Work is a social experience. Regular interaction with clients, co-workers, and supervisors is necessary to do our jobs effectively; however, the difference between a positive and a negative work experience may be the extent to which we trust those C. Burr University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] T. Samardzic () University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7_7

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with whom we interact and the organizations in which we work. Georg Simmel (1950) described trust as “one of the most powerful synthetic forces within society” (p. 318). He posited that trust facilitates social interactions by reducing the uncertainty embedded in how to proceed within those interactions. Niklas Luhmann (1979) stated that as a social tool, trust prevents possible chaos and fear of action. Trust is a key factor in outcomes regarding employee commitment and job satisfaction (Siddiqi & Kharshiing, 2015; Six & Sorge, 2008), which, in turn, predict the well-­being and happiness of employees (Bowling, Eschleman, & Wang, 2010). Canadian workers have been found to be among the most highly satisfied and engaged in the world (CBC News, 2013). This, then, begs the question: are attitudes of trust affected by cultural characteristics? As Canadians, how do our cultural characteristics contribute to the extent to which we trust the people around us, the officials that govern us, and in particular, the organizations at which we work? To answer those questions, it is necessary to understand that the values and beliefs Canadians hold are unique products of Canada’s history, including its political, economic, and social systems.

Canada’s Values and Beliefs A 2016 Nanos survey found that rights and freedoms (16%), respect for others (12%), and kindness and compassion (11%) emerged as top Canadian values. Other values included multiculturalism, diversity, and bilingualism (9%); social values (education, healthcare, opportunities; 9%); equality, equity and social justice (8%); and tolerance and acceptance (8%). Author Charlotte Gray (2016) noted that while Canada embraces traditional Western liberal values, the way in which they are put into practice says much about the uniqueness of Canadian culture. She says, “in the last 100 years, this country has reinvented itself every generation” (Minsky, 2016), and adds that this reinvention is accomplished through accommodation, compromise, and pragmatism, which are unique to Canada. These are the foundations upon which Canadian values are built and can be traced directly back to the people who lived and settled here. It is important to recognize that Canada is not a homogeneous country. Instead, Canada is a mosaic of many different cultures, all of which uniquely contribute to its values.

Canada’s People Franco-Canadians The French settled in Canada in the 1530s, claiming that the land was to be New France and determining that French would be the main language of that land. French Canadians currently make up the second-largest ethnic group in Canada, behind

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those of English descent. However, in the mid-eighteenth century, the British arrived on the continent and took control of the land, and with this shift, English became the official language and the primary language of the majority of the population. Although the French settled in Canada first, they did not spread much beyond Québec and Southern Ontario, whereas English speakers moved to explore and populate most of Canada. In fact, despite Francophones comprising 30% of Canada’s population in 2016, 95% of them live in Québec (Statistics Canada, 2017). The French influence on Canadian culture remains, as it was the coexistence of these two European influences, British and French, that had an early influence on shaping the culture of present-day Canada. More specifically, it was the fact that negotiation and conciliation processes were chosen as the means to integrate the two cultures, rather than confrontation or aggression, that has had a long-lasting impact on Canadian culture and how people within that culture interact.

Anglo-Canadians Anglo-Canadians, also known as Anglophones and English-speaking AngloCanadians is the group that comprise the largest proportion of Canadian people. Many English-speaking Canadians can trace their historic roots back to England, Scotland, and Ireland, from where their ancestors immigrated to Canada. As such, many were of Protestant and Roman Catholic religious affiliation. English was first spoken in Canada in the seventeenth century, and the continuation of English as the dominant language occurred after Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War when France returned the remaining Canadian land that it had back to Britain. According to the 2016 census, 74% of respondents identified English as their first official language spoken (Statistics Canada, 2016b).

Indigenous Peoples One group who are largely underrepresented in the academic literature are the Indigenous peoples, who have lived on the land now known as Canada for over 12,000 years. “Indigenous” is a collective term to include First Nations, Inuit, Cree, Iroquois, and Métis peoples, to name but a few.1 Census data suggests that in 2016, 1.7 million people in Canada were Indigenous, thus accounting for about 5% of Canada’s total population (Statistics Canada, 2016a).

1  This list is by no means exhaustive. For more information and a full list, please visit the following website: https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100013785/1529102490303

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Recent Immigrants The group that is rapidly growing in population within Canada is that of recent immigrants. Recent immigrants – otherwise known as allophones, whose mother tongue is neither English nor French – are quickly increasing in number. Anglophones used to comprise 61% of Canada, but between 1981 and 2006, the influx of immigrants has decreased that figure to 58% (Statistics Canada, 2018). Recent statistics highlight that newcomers largely immigrated to Canada from the Philippines, India, China, Iran, and Pakistan (Statistics Canada, 2016e). The multiplexity of this group demonstrates Canada’s willingness to embrace multiculturalism and the wide range of places from which people have come in order to call Canada their home. This brief overview of Canada’s peoples is meant to provide a snapshot of the multiplexity within our country. It also helps contextualize the contributors to Canadians’ values and beliefs, which derive from multiple influences. Not only are there differences in the makeup of citizens, there are also nuances within political and social systems, all of which contribute to Canadians’ trust attitudes.

Political System Canada’s formal head of state is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who is the personal embodiment of the Canadian Crown. However, the governor-general is responsible for carrying out duties on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II. In one sense, Canada has a constitutional monarchy, but politically speaking, it is a parliamentary representative democracy. Canada operates under a party system that works to determine government control. The leader of the party in power is the prime minister, who is the head of the government. Historically, the dominant political parties present in Canada have been the Conservative Party of Canada and the Liberal Party of Canada; however, the New Democratic Party (NDP) has emerged in recent years as a third party supported in Canada. The Conservatives are a right-of-center party that currently stand for lower taxes, a greater decentralization of the federal government, and respect for traditional values. The Liberals are a left-of-center party that currently stand for a free and open society so that residents are not affected by a lack of access (to healthcare, student loans, etc.). The NDP are a left-wing party that c­ urrently aim to reduce poverty and to foster economic growth through the creation of jobs. Beyond the main three, there other active parties also in existence, representing the diversity of political views in Canada.

Social System Canada is considered a “social democracy” meaning that it provides three types of activities: (a) provision for minimum income for all individuals; (b) provision for reducing economic uncertainty from contingencies (e.g., unemployment, illness,

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old age); and (c) provision of social services for all individuals (Briggs, 1967). The social democracy inherent in Canada is particularly visible in Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system, which ensures that residents have access to medically necessary procedures, physician, and hospital visits without having to pay out of pocket. This is possible by dividing the costs and responsibilities between two levels of government: the provincial (and territorial) and federal governing bodies. Also, individuals may be eligible for social assistance – called welfare – provided monthly based on financial need. Finally, residents of Canada are also eligible for many benefits through work, including employment insurance benefits, unemployment security, worker’s compensation, and Old Age Security (after the age of 65). Canada’s political and social position provides insight into its proclivity to comradery and community. This insight is important to understanding the nature of trust and trustworthiness in the Canadian context, one that differs from many other industrialized nations.

Mosaic, Not Melting Pot Unlike some other more cohesive countries, Canada welcomes rather than discourages diversity, and multiculturalism is celebrated rather than denounced. This can be credited in part to former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau who, in 1971, adopted multiculturalism as an official government policy (Government of Canada, 2012). The idea of multiculturalism served to instill mutual respect: at the heart of the policy was the acknowledgment that people from other cultural contexts were important elements in the composition of Canadian society. Canada is thus seen as a cultural mosaic, where people from many ethnic groups, some of whom speak languages other than the national languages of English and French, are invited to coexist (Bowman, 2000; Day, 2000). This contrasts the melting pot approach adopted by other countries, where assimilation to the pre-established customs is more obligatory (Wong & Guo, 2018). Indeed, census data from Statistics Canada (2016c) indicates that 41% of the population reported multiple ethnic origins and 22% of the population were immigrants to Canada.

Economic System Canada operates a market economy, where decisions about investment, production, and distribution are tied to supply and demand. Canada’s economy is quite similar to, as well as intricately entwined with, its neighbor to the south, the United States. Indeed, Canadian citizens enjoy the same high standard of living as do Americans.

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Review of the Literature Trust is a concept that is used frequently, yet its foundational underpinnings are quite involved. Trust varies both in definition and in type, and trust varies based on school of thought. Not only that, but there are nuances to its understanding as a result of context. The following section provides a brief review of scholarly work around trust as a means of understanding Canadians’ trust attitudes within the context of work.

Definitions of Trust Social interactions are facilitated by trust. Trust is generated through evidence gleaned by the trustor (i.e., the one doing the trusting) from the other person (i.e. the trustee or the one potentially being trusted). However, because humans are not capable of ever being fully sure of the actions of others, there is an element of risk associated with choosing to trust. In order for trust to happen in these social interactions, evidence that the trustor can trust the other must be stronger than rational proof or personal observation (Simmel, 1950). Mӧllering (2001) calls the willingness to take the risk to trust as a “leap of faith,” where faith is a belief in something in the absence of evidence of any kind. This element of faith, according to Mӧllering (2001), encompasses those variables that are either unresolved, unknown, or unknowable. Along the same lines, Li (2015) also conceptualizes trust as a leap, but of hope. Hope is an expectation of a favorable outcome that the trusted does what the trustor expects. Other definitions of trust include Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman’s (1995) where they define trust as follows: …the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party (p. 712).

Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, and Camerer (1998) also weighed in, denoting trust as rising from an attitude of acceptance of the risk of possible harm or disappointment based on favorable expectations of others’ behavior. Indeed, most definitions of trust found in the literature include elements of acceptance of (a) risk or vulnerability and (b) confident expectations of desirable action from the trusted (Cummings & Bromiley, 1996; Das & Teng, 1998; Hardin, 1940; Luhmann, 1979; Sitkin & Roth, 1993). Trustworthiness and Propensity to Trust Hardin (2002) describes trust as the result of cognitive assessments that lead to a belief in the trusted to fulfill their expectations. Additionally, the willingness to believe in the truth of those cognitive assessments varies from individual to

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individual. Therefore, while most definitions of trust include the acceptance of risk inherent in placing one’s interests within the power of another, that acceptance is based on both evidence of another’s trustworthiness and an individual’s propensity to trust (Colquitt, Scott, & LePine, 2007; Mayer et al., 1995). The propensity to trust is described as a unique individual factor and is based on experience, personality, and cultural background that affect whether and/or to what extent a given individual is willing to trust others (Mayer et al., 1995). However, trustworthiness is a trustor’s assessment of another’s characteristics that must be present in some combination to precipitate the intent to trust. Mayer et al. (1995) suggest that these characteristics of trustworthiness are ability, integrity, and benevolence. Ability refers to the “skills, abilities, and characteristics” that an individual possesses that allows that individual to provide expert help to someone (Mayer et al., 1995, p. 717). Therefore, the trustor may only deem an individual trustworthy in certain contexts, as the perception of ability, or competence, is a large influencer of this dimension. Integrity is defined as “the trustor’s perception that the trustee adheres to a set of principles that the trustor finds acceptable” (Mayer et  al., 1995, p.  719). The trustor determines whether the trustee’s principles are acceptable based on the trustee’s actions (e.g., consistency and congruence of words and actions, fairness, and reliability). Finally, benevolence refers to the degree to which the trustee wants to do good to the person trusting them, “aside from an egocentric profit motive” (Mayer et al., 1995, p. 7). This characteristic of trust generally exists in a personal relationship between individuals who interact regularly with each other. Types of Trust Two main types of trust have been proposed: cognitive and affective (Lewis & Weigert, 1985; McAllister, 1995; Vanhala, Heilmann, & Salminen, 2016). Cognitive trust is a form of trust that is rational and driven by external sources of evidence such as consistent behavior, reliability, and dependability. The strength of the evidence necessary for trust need not be strong but should constitute “good reasons” to serve as a foundation for trust (Simmel, 1950). For example, a person may trust that they will be paid on time for their work according to evidence such as governmental laws regarding payment of employees and the past record of the company for ­making payments on time. The decision to trust in this particular context is based on evidence that has been deemed as good enough by the trustor. Affective trust, in contrast, is emotional and driven by attributions of care and concern on the part of another (McAllister, 1995). It is a type of trust that is composed of emotional bonds between individuals (Lewis & Weigert, 1985). This type of trust engenders emotional investment by the person doing the trusting in the relationship and seems to exist at the individual level rather than the sociocultural level, which is the level at which cognitive trust primarily exists (McAllister, 1995). For example, a person may trust their supervisor to ensure their continued growth in an organization based on evidence of personal caring and concern

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toward them in the past. In this example, the trustor has established a personal relationship with the supervisor that they believe is reciprocated, thus providing a base for trust to occur. Affective trust takes time to develop, but once formed, it is difficult to break. This contrasts with cognitive trust, which is generally present before affective trust (McAllister, 1995) and does not require interpersonal bonds in order to form. It is not unusual for these two types of trust to exist together. In fact, Lewis and Weigert (1985) suggest that the levels of cognitive and affective trust are correlated with the type of social relationship, situation, and system under examination. For example, a person may have a higher level of cognitively based rather than affectively based trust influencing their beliefs in the behavior of their government or organization, as cognitive trust tends to be fostered in the macro level of social interaction. However, one may have a more affectively based than cognitively based trust influencing their beliefs about the behavior of their immediate supervisor. This is because affectively based trust tends to be fostered at the micro level through interpersonal interactions. The authors also argue that cognitive trust cannot exist solely without affective trust nor can affective trust exist solely without cognitive trust. The former would be merely “cold-blooded prediction,” and the later would simply be “blind faith” (Lewis & Weigert, 1985, p. 972).

Levels of Trust There are differing schools of thought regarding where and how trust operates; therefore, simply defining trust is not enough to fully encompass the role that it plays in facilitating social interactions. As a social psychological construct, trust is formed as a result of the mother-baby feeding experience (Erikson, 1950). This “basic trust” trait is influenced by life experiences, which in turn affects individuals’ assessments of trustworthiness and propensity to trust. Wang and Gordon (2011) state that only individuals trust, that is, the intention or willingness to make oneself vulnerable in a social interaction is specific to the individual within a specific situation. One limitation of this viewpoint is that it is difficult to use when explaining changes in levels of trust as an aggregate social phenomenon. Alternately, authors such as Lewis and Weigert (1985), Luhmann (1979), and Simmel (1950) position trust as a sociocultural construct where trust exists within a social system and is a property of groups, not individuals. According to this view, trust is not viewed as a personal characteristic. Instead, it is a social tool that use is defined by individuals’ subjective culture and guided by social norms and expectations to facilitate social interactions in order to achieve common goals (Newton & Norris, 2000). It reduces the uncertainty surrounding how to proceed within social interactions, thus preventing possible “chaos and paralyzing fear” of action

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(Luhmann, 1979, p. 4). This model stresses the importance of sustaining cooperative relations within society and posits that individuals’ participation in social institutions, such as work, school, and government, determine their propensity to trust. In this case, trustworthiness is determined by assessment of the capability and fairness of the institution or organization along with the sense of agency engendered within individuals through their association (Shapiro, 1987; Vanhala et al., 2016) with those institutions and organizations and is cognitive in nature. Through this sociocultural lens, trust is built through cooperation and reciprocity. In other words, there is a dynamic and reciprocally reinforcing relationship between those who express trust in the institutions and organizations with which they interact (Newton & Norris, 2000). This interaction tends to produce strong and effective institutions and organizations. After contextualizing Canada and explaining the nature of trust as it relates to the sociocultural level of analysis, the next section delves into Canadian cultural characteristics. Specifically, we explore how trust exists within that cultural context, with a focus on trust in institutions, such as the government and organizations, such as the workplace. We do this by amalgamating theory and context and providing an analysis of Canadians using Hofstede’s (1980) cultural model.

Practical Implications The most recently available snapshot of Canadians’ trust behaviors is provided by the Edelman (2019) Trust Barometer, a highly robust annual trust and credibility measure used to inquire about trust among businesses and the government. Since 2018, Canada has become slightly more globally distrusting, both among the general population and even more so among the informed public. However, 50% of the mass population believe that the system is failing them, and there has been a rise in distrust with respect to Canadian government and media since 2018. Within the context of work, trust in the organization and in supervisors is important to Canadians (e.g., Helliwell & Huang, 2011). For instance, just over half of employees (54%) who participated in the Edelman (2019) study agreed that their employer was a trustworthy source of information about social issues as well as other important topics on which there is a lack of general agreement. In a recent Canadian meta-­analysis, Bedi and Schat (2013) found that when politics are present within an organization, trust is impacted and tends to be lower among employees. Despite ample research on trust in various contexts in other countries, Canada has been mostly absent from the research, due in part to a lack of reliable data (Kazemipur, 2006). Nevertheless, some information may be inferred by examining cultural contextual factors.

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Trust in the Canadian Context Organizations and institutions exist within society as “entities” that are attributed behaviors by people. Those behaviors are then assessed for consistency, dependability, and reliability, which are key characteristics of cognitive trust. In terms of the influence of each type of trust in the Canadian workplace, it is difficult to assess the extent to which cognitive trust trumps affective trust or vice versa as there is a dearth of literature on the subject. The literature that does exist is from the United States and therefore may not accurately represent Canadian peoples’ attitudes of trust in the workplace. Hofstede (1980) provides a sociocultural model of national culture that identifies a series of value dimensions. Given the widespread use of this model, it is a useful framework for contextualizing and discussing trust in Canada. Hofstede’s original model includes four value dimensions: power distance, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus femininity, and uncertainty avoidance. The value dimensions within this framework reflect the attitudes and beliefs that members of a society hold.

Power Distance Power distance reflects the degree of acceptance with the reality that power is unequally distributed, particularly in the case of less powerful individuals. Canada has a rating of 39, which is generally considered to be low. Cultures that are low in power distance tend to actively promote equality. In Canada, this is reflected in a lack of overt class distinctions. The Canadian culture of democratic process encourages citizens to actively participate in their own governance. Canadians work together, and the divide between subordinates and superiors is smaller (House, Hanges, Javidad, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004). Since Canadians are more involved in choosing who governs them, a logical conclusion may be that Canadians would have high levels of trust in their government. However, this does not seem to be the case. The World Values Survey (WVS) asked Canadians about their trust in several institutions and organizations (Inglehart et  al., 2014). Canadian attitudes of trust toward government decreased almost 4% between the years of 2000 and 2009, and more than 50% of Canadians trust the government either not very much or not at all. This attitude could be due to a belief that those in office do not have the ability to effectively do their jobs. For example, within the work environment, Canadians’ attitudes toward power distance affect leader-subordinate relationships (Fock, Hui, Au, & Bond, 2013). Consistent with the assertion (Naor, Linderman, & Schroeder, 2010) that lower power distance indicates that a leadership hierarchy is merely a product of operational convenience where superiors are expected to work with employees rather than direct employees, Canadian workers believe that they should be consulted about organizational decisions and that supervisors should be responsible for their own work as opposed to delegate important tasks to subordinates. A qualitative analysis that measured the importance of dimensions of trustworthiness (i.e., Mayer’s

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conception of trustworthiness as comprising ability, benevolence, and integrity) showed that ability emerged as the second most important dimension attributed to superiors by Canadian employees (Kwantes, Idemudia, & Olasupo, 2018). This illustrates that Canadian workers expect their leaders to have the ability to do their jobs, and when that expectation is fulfilled, they will likely trust their leaders.

Individualism Versus Collectivism Individualism versus collectivism concerns the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members (Hofstede, 1980). Individualism values freedom to express oneself as unique, and it involves placing one’s personal goals ahead of others’ goals. Collectivism describes a society where people work toward the goals of their groups and uniqueness is discouraged (Triandis, 1994). Canada is considered an individualistic culture with a Hofstede value model rating of 80. Canadians tend to prioritize their own interests over the interests of the group, but this tends to be offset by their commitment to social programs, such as universal healthcare and living wages. Indeed, Canada is the sixth most generous nation in the world when it comes to contributing to social needs programs (Charities Aid Foundation, 2016). Canada values freedom, challenge, and uniqueness (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov, 2010). Individualism may lead Canadians to have a greater propensity to trust those people outside of their “ingroup” (i.e., family, friends) based on the need to interact with others in an effort to achieve their personal goals. In turn, this may lead to greater openness and acceptance of others. Interestingly, this is reflected in results from the WVS (Inglehart et  al., 2014). Canadians indicated that they tend to somewhat trust people of another religion (71% of respondents), people they have met for the first time (48% of respondents), and people of another nationality (70% of respondents). Indeed, Canada prides itself on its commitment to multiculturalism and inclusiveness. A study done in at the University of Lethbridge found that, in Canadian cities, those with more ethnically diverse populations had higher levels of social trust (Kazemipur, 2006). Additionally, Canada was one of the first nations to adopt equity programs for both pay and employment to protect women, visible minorities, and Indigenous peoples because of the increase in diversity, and diversity awareness, of its population and, by extension, its workforce (England & Gad, 2002; Osborne, 2012).

Masculinity Versus Femininity The masculine and feminine dimensions of Hofstede’s (1980) model have to do with the extent to which a country focuses on achievement versus nurturing. In masculine countries, like Canada, where competition, achievement, and success are

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desirable traits (Hofstede et  al., 2010), emotional gender roles do not overlap. Although this normally suggests an inclination for competitiveness and attempts to attain a high standard of life, Canadians tend to be quite subdued in this area (House et al., 2004). This does not mean that they do not strive for excellence; instead, this suggests a clearer work-life balance than some other masculine countries, such as the United States. According to Statistics Canada (2016d), 75% of Canadians are happy with their work/life balance compared to 66% of Americans who are unhappy with theirs (Guta, 2018). Although Canada is considered a masculine society, it does not rate as highly as either the United States or Japan on Hofstede’s rating scale (Hofstede et al., 2010). This may mean that Canada has a more egalitarian attitude toward the roles of men and women. The GLOBE Project found that among Anglophone Canadians, scores on gender egalitarianist attitudes as they “should be” were much higher than scores for gender egalitarianist attitudes as they currently are (House et al., 2004). However, a report from Statistics Canada (2017) showed that although the number of women in the workforce has increased almost threefold since 1976, they are predominantly employed in industries and professions that parallel their traditional roles of nurturers and caretakers at a rate more than double than that of men. The most common industries for women to work in are healthcare and social assistance, education, and hotel and food services (Moyser, 2017). The concentration of women in these industries has not changed significantly since the 1970s. As far as trust in this context is concerned, it may be that Canadian women still choose industries that coincide with their traditional gender roles because they may not trust corporations to see them as viable candidates for jobs that require more physicality or aggressiveness. Indeed, there is still the “double standard” for attributions of behavioral difference between men and women. Men who display aggressive tendencies within organizations or institutions are seen as “go getters,” but women who display the same characteristics are labelled as pushy or out of control (Miller, 2004).

Uncertainty Avoidance Finally, uncertainty avoidance refers to a country’s tolerance for the unpredictability inherent in life. As a sociocultural construct, uncertainty avoidance refers to how (un)comfortable the general public is with technology, law, and religion (Hofstede, 2001). Cultures with low uncertainty avoidance tend to accept situations that are novel or different. Canada’s measure of 48 on the Hofstede rating scale is generally considered to be low. Canada’s tolerance of ambiguity is inherent in its society, particularly with its focus on the freedom of expression and ideas. This fosters innovation and an influx of consumer products. Low uncertainty avoidance also means that Canadians are more willing to engage in the vulnerability necessary in trusting others (Hofstede et  al., 2010), especially without knowing what will result from doing so.

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Although it may seem as if Canadians are a fairly trusting group of people, when asked whether most people can be trusted or does one need to be very careful around others, 56% responded that one needs to be very careful compared to 42% that said most people can be trusted (Inglehart et al., 2014). The same survey found that there are some institutions that do not engender trust for Canadians: the media (both print and video), the government, labor unions, and major companies. Canada is a large, geographically diverse country with a population that is highly concentrated in its middle: Ontario and Québec. According to Statistics Canada (2017), Ontario and Québec house more than half the population of Canada. An interesting study found that levels of trust in Canadian cities tended to decrease as the population increased (Kazemipur, 2006). This could possibly explain the findings of the survey, particularly if more people were sampled from Ontario and Québec. It is possible that if Canadians are basing their choice to trust on cognitive assessments of trustworthiness, a lack of consistency in the messages and behaviors from these institutions may be influencing their lack of trust. Alternately, Canadians tend to trust the Armed Forces and police service very much, possibly because their messages and behaviors are consistent.

 rench Canadians, Indigenous Peoples, and Recent F Immigrants Hofstede’s (1980) culture model distinguishes Francophones from the larger majority of Canada and acknowledges the variations among the different cultural groups. Francophones in Canada tend to have a higher power distance compared to Anglophones, indicating a greater degree of hierarchy, particularly in the workplace (House et  al., 2004). They are still individualistic but to a lesser degree than Anglophones. They are also considered masculine but score lower than their Anglophone counterparts, suggesting a greater degree of emotional expression. Finally, they are more intolerant of uncertainty than the rest of Canadians. Despite limited information with respect to French Canadians, Indigenous peoples’, and recent immigrants’ experiences have not been captured within the framework of the value orientation model.

Franco-Canadians In general, as compared to other Canadians, research suggests that FrancoCanadians express higher trust in the government and political system (Hwang, 2017; Soroka, Johnston, & Banting, 2007). This finding is somewhat surprising given the turbulent history inherent in Francophones’ experiences. However, trust in the government does not seem to extend to other areas, particularly social ones.

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Indeed, a recent report found that compared to the rest of Canada, residents of Québec display systematically lower levels of social trust (Brie, 2018), a type of trust that involves belief in the honesty and reliability of social others (i.e., trust in strangers, neighbors, co-workers, and family and trust in general). A prevailing reason for this seems to be their geographic isolation given that most live in Québec (Uslaner, 2012). Thus, being socially isolated may contribute to their lower levels of trust in many social domains, including work, because of a lack of experience with different cultures. Notwithstanding, the research devoted to understanding French Canadian employees’ attitudes toward trust in the workplace is scant. Nightingale and Toulouse (1978) assessed French Canadian employees’ perceived alienation at work. Among these employees, low confidence and trust in one’s supervisor and in one’s peers were both associated with higher alienation at work. Further, Denis, Morin, and Guidon (2010) found that among French Canadian employees, trust was associated with task performance and global job performance. Beyond the aforementioned findings and despite the fact that French Canadians are the largest minority in Canada, research into their attitudes of trust and trustworthiness at work is clearly missing. Future research should assess the factors, both micro and systemic, that foster and/or impede French Canadians’ decision to trust, particularly in the context of work, a place where employees spend most of their day.

Indigenous Peoples A majority of the research on trust within the Indigenous context revolves around (lack of) trust in the government (Hwang, 2017; Thibodeau & Peigan, 2007), primarily because of the intricate and strained history between the Indigenous peoples and the Government of Canada. When settlers landed in Canada in the seventeenth century, there was peaceful coexistence among them and the Indigenous peoples. This coexistence slowly dissolved, and in its place came the expectation of assimilation. One way that this occurred was through the enactment of the Indian Act of 1876, which systematically enabled the eradication of First Nations culture to conform to the European-Canadian way of society. For example, Indigenous children were sent to residential schools in an attempt to eradicate their Indigenous heritage and assimilate them to the mainstream society. There, they suffered years of abuse and a loss of identity. In 2008, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was created to document the impact of the residential school system on Indigenous students and their families and provide a public forum for individuals to share their experiences. In June of that year, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to the Indigenous peoples on behalf of the Government of Canada for the suffering and generational disruption caused as a result of the residential school system. Notwithstanding, the actions of the Canadian government have disrupted the lives of generations of Indigenous peoples in Canada and have systematically worked to break down trust  – particularly cognitive trust  – among these peoples (Alfred,

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Pitawanakwat, & Price, 2007; Blackstock, 2001). Indeed, although Indigenous peoples comprise 5% of Canada’s population, Indigenous adults account for 28% of federal, provincial, and territorial correctional facility admissions (Malakieh, 2018). Although Canada prides itself on being a cultural mosaic and being accepting of all other ethnicities and cultures, the way Indigenous people have been treated in the past and, in some instances, to this day does not reflect that. There has been very little research devoted to Indigenous employees’ experiences in the context of the workplace in general. Much of the research in this area has focused on Indigenous workers in New Zealand (Haar & Brougham, 2013) and Australia (Lai, Taylor, Haigh, & Thompson, 2018). Although this research took place in countries other than Canada, they are both Commonwealth countries, and therefore, the findings may be pertinent for the Canadian context as well to some extent. For instance, Haar and Brougham (2013) hypothesized that Indigenous employees in New Zealand have less career satisfaction because they tend to have less education and a lower income. However, they found that when the cultural well-being within the workplace context was high, the Indigenous employees reported the greatest satisfaction with their careers. Ensuring cultural well-being, however, has been a challenge given the history with European/North American settlers and Indigenous peoples. Keys Young (1998) has classified the collective displacement that has occurred with Indigenous peoples as “spiritual homelessness,” a larger disconnection from the knowledge about and identity with Indigenous culture. There occurs a sense of not belonging that reflects a lack of cultural safety. Although cultural safety stems from health policy in the New Zealand context (Ramsden, 1990, 1992), it has implications in Canada as well. Integral to achieving cultural safety is attempting to reduce the power imbalances in social structures, such as organizations in which Indigenous peoples are employed. Working to actively reduce the power differentials within organizations, perhaps through the implementation of policies and standard practices, is one way to create an environment that is safe and can promote trust and trustworthiness. There is virtually no research on Indigenous employees’ trust behaviors in the Canadian context. Not surprisingly, the policies and standard practices currently in effect do not usually account for Indigenous employees’ experiences. Indeed, there is more literature on trust behaviors of immigrants to Canada and their employment experiences than there is on the experiences of Indigenous people.

Recent Immigrants Previous studies have suggested that immigrants demonstrate lower levels of trust than those who were born in the country in question, perhaps because of their minority status, which can cause exclusions for newcomers (Kazemipur, 2006; Soroka, Helliwell, & Johnston, 2007). However, one study by Bilodeau and White (2016) found that compared to Canadian-born individuals, more recent immigrants indicated that most people could be trusted (38% versus 48%, respectively). The

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general trend is that recent newcomers are more trusting, especially of institutions (Cotter, 2015). Although this group of Canadians is ever-changing, they are also increasing in size, and characterization of their trust behaviors is important. What is missing in the existing research is specificity and context within samples (e.g., time since immigration to Canada, place of origin). Also, more is needed in terms of factors that may influence propensity to trust, like education level prior to immigration and the extent to which a degree attained in one’s home country is admissible in Canada, among newcomers. Canada is a vast country composed of many different cultural groups with an array of backgrounds. Some groups may be more trusting than others in the workplace; however, speaking generally, it seems as if the ability to do jobs effectively and the treatment of subordinates with respect, equity, and equality in a consistent manner are key requirements of trust in the Canadian workplace.

Summary Trust is essential for the smooth operation of a society. Trust is integrated into the culture and is determined by social norms and expectations of behavior. Therefore, understanding it within the context of Canadian culture enables people from other cultures to understand what motivates Canadians. It also allows for the exploration of previously ignored nuances within the society, like understanding French Canadian and Indigenous peoples’ experiences in a context like the workplace. This chapter has provided an introduction in Canada, illuminating both strengths and areas that need improvement in a society that embraces multiculturalism.

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Catherine Burr  has a BA in Psychology from the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and has studied and researched in the field of Applied Social Psychology at the graduate level. Prior to that, she worked in the sales and service industry for many years. She is particularly interested in applying the insights gained by her work experiences to researching the role trust plays in the relationships between employees and the organizations they work for. She has presented her work at various psychology conferences including conferences of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the International Association for Cross-­ Cultural Psychology, and the Midwestern Psychological Association. While at the University of Windsor she served as the project coordinator for the International Trustworthiness Study. Tanja Samardzic  is a PhD student in Applied Social Psychology at the University of Guelph. Before beginning doctoral studies at the University of Guelph, Tanja completed both an Honors BA in Psychology with Thesis and an MA in Applied Social Psychology at the University of Windsor. Broadly, Tanja’s research focuses on exploring self-silencing, which involves active restriction of one’s self-­expressions for the purpose of maintaining intimate relationships. Her MA and doctoral work were focused primarily on young women’s experiences of self-silencing within the context of being in relationships with abusive men. Tanja’s research extends to women’s health as well, with recent inquiry into Canadian women’s experiences of polycystic ovary syndrome, the most common endocrine disorder among reproductive-aged women. Tanja also works as a Research Assistant with the University of Guelph’s Community Engaged Scholarship Institute where she assists in data analysis, evaluation work, and knowledge mobilization activities with organizations who engage in social enterprise work.

Chapter 8

Trust Building in the Globalizing Workplace of Japan Shinichiro Watanabe and Yuichiro Kanazawa

Abstract  The purpose of this chapter is to discuss how cross-cultural research on trust and trustworthiness can be applied to the workplace of Japan that is being increasingly multicultural. We started with a question about how cultures have been generalted and maintained and learned that the origin of collectivism, a most characteristic nature of the Japanese culture, can be traced to the irrigation system where collective cooperation among farmers was believed to be a matter of life and death. Next we reviewed some influential trust research in Japan that opened our eyes to the distinction between trust and assurance-based trust. We also had a bird’s eye view of cross-societal trust research. The main focus was on a study that indicated that the nature of interpersonal reciprocity can be a stronger explanatory factor of trust and trustworthiness than do the differences in cultures or nationalities. Finally it was pointed out that most cross-cultural research on trust has been colored by the binary or categorical view of culture (e.g., East vs West, or Japan vs U.S.A.) and therefore remarkable for their lack of attention to intracultural variablility. Thus, we addressed the need for explorative studies that transcend the classificatory view of cultural variation to embrace the dimensional view of the variation. Keywords  Trust · Trustworthiness · Assurance-based trust · Intracultural variability · Classificatory vs dimensional views of culture

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss how cross-cultural research on trust and trustworthiness can be applied to the workplace of Japan where an increase in productivity with an increasingly diversified workforce is becoming the new norm. In

S. Watanabe () University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan e-mail: [email protected] Y. Kanazawa International Christian University, Mitaka, Japan

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7_8

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order to do this, we start our account of the Japanese culture, followed by a review of Japanese cross-cultural research on trust and trustworthiness.

Rice Theory of Culture The most characteristic nature of the Japanese culture that is related to the present context is collectivism. It refers to a value that is characterized by an emphasis on the group or society rather than on the self (Hofstede, 2001; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 2011). For a collectivistic individual, it is important to sacrifice his/her interest for the benefit of the group, organization, or society. This type of society promotes selflessness and puts social needs ahead of individual needs, and people are encouraged to work as a group, support others, and do what’s best for the group. In his book published in 1973, American anthropologist Clifford Geertz discussed the influence of rice farming on collectivism. He argued that social pressure toward interfamilial cooperation required in the process of wet rice cultivation strengthened social support or interdependence among rice farmers. This may suggest that in Japan, where most rice is grown through the process of irrigation, farmers have long been under strong pressure toward collective cooperation in a series of tasks such as making the rice paddy flat; plowing the soil; diverting river flow; making reservoirs; controlling the level of water, timing of flooding and draining, and even water temperature; growing rice seedlings in a separate area; and transplanting them to the rice paddy (Khush, 1997). It is possible that collectivism in Japan has much to do with farmers’ economic activities. In their large-scale survey of 408 communities along with a two-year prospective follow-up survey of 86 communities, Uchida et al. (2019) studied the relationship between the proportion of farmers in a community and collectivism. They found a positive relationship between the proportion of farmers and the frequency of participation in collective activities (e.g., maintenance of community infrastructure), which in turn was positively associated with the levels of concern for continual interdependence at the community level. Other research, however, suggests that paddy rice farmers in Southeast Asia tend to be strikingly individualistic. Embree (1950), for instance, wrote that the nature of culture in Thailand is strikingly individualistic. Similarly, an American anthropologist whose research interests included agricultural development in Southeast Asia stated that “[i]n the village with which I was most concerned, interest in the affairs of other families, except close kin, extended no farther than a radius of 100 to 150 yards” (Jay, 1956, p. 215). He also stated that “[t]he immediate family of father, mother, and children has a very high degree of social and economic autonomy” (ibid., p. 217). Cunningham (1969), whose scholarly interests included social structure and cultural change, pointed out that many previous authors found similar loosely structured social systems in Burma, Thai, Khmer, and Sri Lanka. However, according to Japanese anthropologist/sociologist Kuchiba (1975), this apparent lack of close interpersonal relationship has a lot to do with the vast Southeast Asian low-

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land delta areas where deepwater-resistant paddy rice has been grown: water comes to these areas and stays in vast quantity in monsoon seasons. It is just not possible for rice farmers to control this vast body of water. Rice farmers thus do not even think of organizing and cooperating to control the level of water, distributing water evenly to their neighbors, deciding the timing of flooding and draining, and so on. Thus, collectivism in Japan may depend on the specific type of rice farming that takes place in its inland plains.

Generation Process of Cultural Tendencies Growing paddy rice under the irrigation system may enhance levels of trust because people are physically embedded in the infrastructure through two potential paths. It may be that the irrigation system binds people within the same social space, making them repeatedly interact with each other (the repeated interaction hypothesis), or it may be that the farmers embedded in the systems may habitually be forced to interact with each other institutionally (the habit formation hypothesis). As mentioned earlier, Uchida et al.’s (2019) community-level longitudinal survey revealed that repeated collective activities tended to promote residents’ concern for interdependence at regular or frequent intervals about two years later. On the one hand, these findings demonstrate that interdependence can be formed through repeated social interactions via community activities. It thus seems that their study gives credence to the repeated interaction hypothesis at least for this sample. However, Aoyagi, Sawada, and Shoji (2014) focused on irrigation infrastructures funded by concessional development loans from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. They used a unique dataset from an irrigation project in Sri Lanka under a natural experimental situation where a large number of farmers were randomly allocated to the canals through a lottery. They found that variations of particularized trust existed across the canals and within each of them and that the trust level tended to be determined by each farmer’s years of access to the irrigation canal, rather than the frequency of repeated interactions among the farmers. Their results are supportive of the habit formation hypothesis that societal preference emerges as a habit formed by physical or institutional constraints that direct the behavior of people. The confirmation or disconfirmation of either of the two hypotheses is not our primary concern. We think instead that it is more fruitful to identify a basic tenet that is common to the two assumptions regarding how culture is constructed. The common tenet is that interdependence, whether it is required continually or continuously, can be a significant source of collectivism. The level of interdependence required for survival or goal attainment determines the strength of collectivism. The two studies reviewed above both suggested that the strength of collectivism varies across communities depending on the level (frequency and length) of collective activities needed for maintaining the infrastructure of the community. The implication is that cultural tendencies, whether collectivism or individualism, are a reflection of economic activities. Vandello and Cohen’s study in the

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United States is a good illustration of how long continued (or continuing) ways of living can shape cultural psyche. Specifically, they found that collectivist tendencies were strongest in deep southern plantations where work was carried out by a large number of farmers coordinated within a web of cooperative relationships, whereas individualist tendencies were strongest in the Mountain West and Great Plains, the last remaining frontier of the States with a tradition of cattle ranching. The point is that if people in a region/society come to have a shared perception that interdependence (or independence) is the best solution for goal achievement and if the solution continues to work for the people, then the perception will be gradually transformed into a shared assumption or culture. If the assumption changes, so will the cultural tendencies.

Literature Review Japanese Culture It would be wrong to believe that all Japanese people behave similarly across situations and over time. This is particularly true since Japan experienced the US occupation at the end of World War II.  The emic view suggests that Japan is not as homogenous as most cross-cultural researchers would believe. However, taking an etic view to capture Japanese culture in as neutral a way as possible, most Japanese would probably notice and agree that there are some unique characteristics that are familiar to them and even ingrained in their mind. Let’s have a bird’s eye view of those characteristics, which we believe would later help us have a better understanding about how culture affects trust-related attitudes and behaviors in Japan. Collectivism and Interdependent Self-Construal  Individualism and collectivism have gained popularity in the social sciences. The reason for the popularity is that people do not live in a vacuum, and those two constructs are probably the fundamental cultural facets that cause differences in how people interact with others and how they present themselves in society. As reviewed earlier, Japan can be strongly characterized as being a collectivistic society, where individuals are highly integrated into groups and are supposed to emphasize the needs and goals of their groups as a whole over those of each individual (Hofstede, 2001). This sharply contrasts with individualistic societies in which individuals are generally considered to be good if they are independent, autonomous, and self-reliant. Individualism and collectivism result in two sharply contrasting cognitive representations of the self that people may hold: individualistic and collectivistic self-­ construals. The differences are clearly stated in Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) symbolic anecdote: In America “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” In Japan, “the nail that stands out gets pounded down.” (p. 224)

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Markus and Kitayama 1991, claim that this anecdote is a reflection of strikingly different self-construals that people in the United States and Japan may hold: independent and interdependent self-construals, respectively. These self-construals differ in the extent to which individuals view themselves at a fundamental level as distinct from (i.e., independent), or connected to (i.e., interdependent), others. It is widely known that people in individualistic cultures are more, and in collectivistic cultures less, likely to engage in behavior that makes them stand out and appear distinctive or unique. Logically linking such behavioral styles to cultural norms, Markus and Kitayama 1991, argue that behind such individuating styles are individualistic imperatives to be independent, autonomous, self-reliant, and assertive and behind such collective behavioral styles are collectivistic imperatives to be self-sacrificing, generous, and interdependent. This suggests that people with independent self-construals hold a unique configuration of internal attributes (e.g., traits, abilities, motives, and values) and behave primarily as a consequence of these internal attributes, while those with interdependent self-construals are more likely to regulate their actions based on their perceptions about what others would think and feel. Reviewing relevant empirical literature, including their own, Markus and Kitayama 1991, found interpretable patterns on how these different cultural selfschemata influence individual cognition, emotion, and motivation. Cognition  Markus and Kitayama 1991, held that those with interdependent selves would be more attentive to others than those with independent selves and tended to see themselves as fundamentally embedded in a specific social context. Extensively reviewing the findings of Au (1983, 1984), Bloom (1981, 1984), Cousins (1989), and Moser (1989), they concluded that because of the cognitive organization of interdependent selves, Japanese, as compared to Americans, tend to experience difficulty in responding to a question like “Who are you?” However, once the question is contextualized (e.g., “How do you characterize yourself at home, school, work, etc.?”), they become more eloquent in the self-characterization. Emotion  Markus and Kitayama 1991, made the distinction between ego-focused emotions (e.g., pride, happiness, frustration, anger) and other-focused emotions (e.g., empathy, peacefulness, indebtedness, shame) and posited that ego-focused vs other-­focused emotions are self-relevant for those with independent vs interdependent selves, respectively. They also conjectured that because they highly value interpersonal harmony, those with interdependent selves tend to hide or inhibit the expression of such strong negative emotions as frustration and anger. Motivation  Based on the notion that harmony, belonging, and connectedness to others vs autonomy, sense of control, and separateness from others will be relatively more focal for individuals with highly interdependent vs independent selves, respectively, Markus and Kitayama 1991, maintained that communal or interdependent motives (i.e., deference, affiliation, nurturance, succorance, affiliation) are most self-­relevant for those with strong collectivistic tendencies. In contrast, for those

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with strong individualistic tendencies, agency or control over one’s surroundings is most self-relevant. High Contextualization for Interpersonal Harmony  The distinction between collectivism and individualism is closely related to the distinction of Hall’s (1976) high-context and low-context cultures. High-context cultures value interpersonal harmony, which is widely shared among people. By contrast, low-context cultures emphasize individuality, and therefore, people’s most self-relevant concerns tend to be directed toward themselves, resulting in the fact that they don’t necessarily share the same social values. Hall 1976, argues that the high and low contexts determine a culture’s style of communication. Specifically, within high-context societies, people tend to communicate in ways that are implicit and heavily rely on nonverbal contextual cues, while within low-context societies, people tend to communicate in ways that are explicit and heavily rely on verbally conveyed information. Because of strong cues of interpersonal harmony for social appropriateness, it is quite often the case that clearly defined verbal messages are not necessary for people in high-context cultures. Japan, Korea, and Vietnam are considered high-context cultures, whereas most Western countries are considered low-context cultures (see, e.g., Hofstede, 2001; Shiraev and Levy, 2017). High context encompasses two dimensions: indirectness and sensitivity (Gudykunst, Ting-Toomey, & Chua, 1988). Indirectness is seen when a person indirectly says no or hints at it when rejecting or disagreeing with someone. People in high-context cultures tend to convey a difficult message to someone without being explicit. Behind this mode of communication is the collectivistic motive to maintain harmonious interpersonal relations. They tend to not convey a difficult message explicitly to others if doing so would hurt them. This is particularly true among people who have long-term committed relationships with each other in a group. Sensitivity refers to the ability to understand other people’s needs and feelings from such contextual or nonverbal cues as body language, eye expression, tone of voice, and a person’s status. An old Japanese proverb “Eyes say as much and are as eloquent as mouths” permeates the entire society and represents the very best example to understand the sensitivity dimension of high-context communications. For example, when someone is upset, Japanese tend to detect it without asking him/her directly. Also, they are generally good at distinguishing between a sincere invitation and one indirectly intended as a gesture of politeness. Messages Japanese convey to others, therefore, do not always reflect their true intentions and feelings. Interesting to note is that because their attitudes and behaviors tend to be influenced greatly by strong cues for interpersonal harmony in the high-context network they belong to, rather than by natural impulses or other internal attributes, Japanese are less likely to experience much cognitive dissonance arising from the counter-attitudinal messages they convey to others (Doi, 1986; Iwao, 1988; Kiefer, 1976; Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

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Finally, it is important to note that there is no culture that is completely high-­ context or low-context. Every culture has both high and low contexts. For example, as Japanese society is becoming culturally diverse with the continuous inflow of a foreign workforce, more direct and explicit communication seems to have become more important, especially in the realm of business. Also, for people in Western countries, gatherings of family members or friends are probably high-context.

Studies on Trust and Trustworthiness Japanese researchers have extensively studied the subject of trust and trustworthiness. Rather than reviewing a plethora of those studies in a piecemeal fashion, we focus on several important cross-cultural studies that will help us understand the ways culture influences trust-related attitudes and behaviors. The descriptors of culture most often used in the cross-cultural comparisons are collectivistic vs individualistic self-construals made in high-context vs low-context networks.

In-Group vs Out-Group Trust In psychology, trust can be generally attributed to relationships or transactions between people and refers to a willingness of one party (trustor) to be vulnerable to the actions of another party (trustee) based on the expectation that the trustee will behave as desired and fail to harm the trustor (Mayer & Davis, 1999; Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). Similarly, Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, and Camerer (1998) defined trust as an intention to accept vulnerability based on positive expectations of the trustee’s actions. Implicit in this idea is that being vulnerable involves the risk that the trustee will not behave as expected. In their theory of trust, Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994) proposed a distinction between trust and assurance: trust is an expectation of a partner’s goodwill and benign intent, while assurance is an expectation of stable and mutually beneficial relationship with the partner that is based on economic or psychosocial incentive structures. For example, you will not try to deceive someone who you believe will continue to be your best business partners for years to come. In other words, “[t]rust is based on the inference of the interaction partner's personal traits and intentions, whereas assurance is based on the knowledge of the incentive structure surrounding the relationship” (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994, p. 132). With two other notions, social uncertainty and commitment formation, the difference between trust and assurance becomes more easily understood. Yamagishi and Yamagishi 1994, argued that while trust can solve a problem caused by social uncertainty (e.g., when one doesn’t have enough information to evaluate the risk of being exploited in social interactions), forming committed relations with interaction ­partners can serve as a simpler and more readily available solution to the problem.

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As a result, a crucial insight emerged: “trust is needed less to the degree that commitment reduces social uncertainty” (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994, p. 135). Now let us make cross-cultural comparisons of the ways trust, assurance, and commitment are formed among people. Contrary to the generalized expectation that Japan is a highly trusting society, there exists strong and repeated evidence suggesting otherwise. Yamagishi and Yamagishi’s 1994, research clearly shows that culture can influence trust decision-making. Compared with Americans, Japanese tend to prefer committed relations with the in-group and are likely to show lower trust toward generalized others. Also, Japanese tend to value particularized trust toward the ingroup others or use the trustee’s relational cues or group monitoring cues more often than do Americans when making trust decisions (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994). It is possible that the difference in culture caused the difference in the intensity of general trust between Americans and Japanese. As described in the previous section, the United States is a highly individualist country where people are expected to be independent from others, while Japan is a collectivistic county where people are expected to be interdependent. The review of Yamagishi and Yamagishi 1994, helped us to identify who are the others from whom to be independent or with whom to be interdependent. For Americans, it is people in general including both in-group and out-group others. In contrast, in-group others are a primary concern for Japanese, yielding an important question regarding how large the circle of people is among whom exists a certain level of trust. A reasonable answer to the question is that the radius of trust is wider for Americans rather than for Japanese. It follows from the review of Japanese culture and Yamagishi and Yamagishi’s 1994, study on trust that being an independent self means organizing one’s behaviors toward others (whether in-group or out-group) primarily by reference to one’s own internal attributes. In contrast, being an interdependent self means seeing oneself as intertwined with surrounding others (particularly high-context in-group others), whose thoughts, feelings, and actions exert a great influence on one’s behavior. Japanese favoritism to insiders or “in-group bias” may be a reflection of such interdependent self-construal. For fostering a better understanding of this problem, we continue to review some of the more recent studies in which cross-cultural comparisons were made regarding in-group bias, trust, trustworthiness, commitment, and cooperation. Our main concern is the origins of “us” (in-group) and “them” (out-­ group) and their effects on trust and trustworthiness.

Formation of In-group Trust Two prominent theories exist that could explain in-group biases: social identity theory (Tajfel, Billing, Bundy, & Flament, 1971; Tajfel & Turner, 2004) and generalized reciprocity theory (Buchan, Croson, & Dawes, 2002; Yamagishi, Jin, & Kiyonari, 1999). Social identity is an individual’s sense of who s/he is based on his

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or her group membership(s), and Tajfel and Turner (2004) proposed that people derive a sense of pride, self-esteem, and social belongingness from groups they belong to (e.g., family, social class, university, baseball team). In order to increase their self-image, people make a clear distinction between “them” (out-group) and “us” (in-group) by discriminating or seeking negative aspects of the out-group. Generalized reciprocity, however, refers to a belief that people show mutually favorable behavior and on this basis show stronger trust toward their in-group members rather than toward out-group others. Which of the two theories above can better explain the in-group bias often seen and reported in past research in Japan? Suzuki, Konno, and Yamagishi (2007) conducted a choice of allocator game in which transactions were made between allocators and recipients. Eighty-one Japanese students (52 males and 29 females) participated as recipients. Two allocators were introduced to each participant, who was then asked to choose one of the allocators to form an allocator-recipient pair. The allocator’s role was to freely divide a resource (1,700 yen) into two: one for himself or herself and one for the participant. Both the recipients and the allocators were assigned either to Group Paul Klee or to Group Wassily Kandinsky, based on their personal preference in paintings, and they reported a stronger sense of belonging (or awareness of in-group) to the group they were assigned to. The recipients were asked to choose their allocators under one of the two conditions: unilateral and bilateral conditions. In unilateral conditions, the recipient knew the allocator’s preference in paintings, while the allocator had no information about the recipient’s preference. Under bilateral conditions, on the other hand, the recipient’s (allocator’s) preference was known to the allocator (recipient). It was revealed from this experiment that the recipients did not show a preference for the in-group vs out-group allocator when the allocator made a reward allocation decision without knowing the group membership of their recipient. On the other hand, when recipients knew that allocators made the decision based on the group membership of the recipient, significant in-group trust was observed. It follows from the results that the in-group trust is caused by the belief that people show mutually favorable behavior and show stronger trust toward their in-group members rather than toward out-group others. Kiyonari, Foddy, and Yamagishi (2007) conducted an experimental game that was designed similarly to Suzuki et al.’s (2007) choice of allocator game. The participants consisted of students from a Japanese university (n=79) and those from an Australian university (n=83). Both samples were assigned either to Group Klee or to Group Kandinsky at the respective research sites, based on their preference in paintings. The scores on group identity were also higher for the in-group than for the out-group, irrespective of nationality. The results were also similar to those found in Suzuki et al. (2007). That is, when the recipient was allowed to convey his/her decision to the allocator and therefore could expect rewarding and possibly mutually beneficial behavior on the part of the allocator, the allocator tended to respond to the “trust” bestowed upon him/her by the recipient. And this tendency was commonly observed for both the Japanese and

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the Australian samples. Based on Yamagishi and Kiyonari (2000), they called this kind of reciprocity as direct exchange. The results found in the two experiments above jointly suggest that generalized reciprocity theory can provide more reliable accounts of in-group trust than did social identity theory. Additionally, Kiyonari et al. showed that in building trust in transactions, direct reciprocal exchanges can be a more important source of i­ n-­group trust than did the difference in nationality. In other words, whenever people seek for favorable exchanges with others or whenever person-person exchanges exist between them, the nature of reciprocity can be a stronger source of trust. It is quite possible that social identity theory can explain in-group biases only in situations where no exchanges of any sort (economic or social) exist between people (e.g., enemies meet face to face on a battle field).

Cross-Societal Trust, Trustworthiness, and Cooperation Kuwabara et al. (2007) conducted a web-based experiment in which 44 American students and 42 Japanese students played repeated entrustment games over the Internet in real time. Each session of the experiment lasted for 30 minutes and consisted of four American and three or four Japanese students. The participants received $.50 at regular intervals, all or some of which they could keep or entrust to other participant(s). They were allowed to make entrustment only from the amount provided to them ($.50), not from cumulative profits earned in the repeated transactions. The amount of entrustment was doubled by the experimenter and sent to a trustee, who was given two options from which to take one: (a) returning the entire amount to the trustor or (b) keeping the amount received as his or her own payoff. In each exchange, the payoff for the trustor was either zero (if the entrustment was not returned) or 2x (if it was returned), where x was the amount entrusted to the trustee; for the trustee, it was also either zero (if the entrustment was returned) or 2x (if it was kept). Each experimental session was assigned randomly either to the flag­on condition (icons of the national flags are displayed on the computer screen to show the participants’ nationalities) or to the flag-off condition (no information about the participants’ nationalities was given). During the experiment, each participant acted as a trustor and a trustee, and s/he was able to see on the computer monitor who is currently entrusting how much to whom, etc. The results obtained in this study, we believe, gives us some important suggestions for ways of thinking about trust and trustworthiness in the cross-societal context. Specifically, the results hint at greater importance of the nature of interpersonal reciprocity over the difference in nationalities for explaining cross-cultural trustortrustee relations. What follows is a brief review of the findings. Trust  The amount entrusted was used to index the level of trust, which was regressed onto nationality (X1), ingroup (X2), flags (X3), X1*X2, X1*X3, X2*X3, X1*X2*X3, mutuality (number of previous exchanges between the two partners),

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risk (frequency of betrayal), provocation (recency effect of having just been betrayed in the last entrustment to the partner), and controls (funds available, trustor’s gender, and partner’s group size). As a result, no significant effects were found for nationality, group membership, and experimental condition (flag-on vs flag-off) and interactions of these variables, indicating no support for the cross-societal explanation for difference in trust between Americans and Japanese. The predictors that reached statistical significance were such relational commitment variables as mutuality and risk, which were associated positively and negatively with the criterion, respectively. Kuwabara et al. 2007, argue that the results show how relational commitment is important in the prediction of trust. Trustworthiness  Kuwabara et al. (2007) conducted operationalized trustworthiness in terms of the decision to return an entrustment and examined whether the set of aforementioned variables can explain variance in trustworthiness. The results showed that Japanese tended to be more trustworthy than American participants when mutuality, risk, and provocation were excluded in the analysis; however, the nationality was no longer significant when those relational variables were entered into the equation. Kuwabara et al. posit that nationality does not affect trustworthiness directly; the effect might be indirectly transmitted through relational commitment. Although not tested for in their study, the assumption of the indirect effect of nationality to relational commitment to trustworthiness seems to be worth testing in future studies. Durability of Relations  Past research suggests that individualism increases relational mobility (e.g., Schug, Yuki, & Maddux, 2010; Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994; Yuki & Schug, 2012), suggesting that Americans are more likely to hold short-term relations with strangers while Japanese are more likely to commit to a long-term relationship with whom they already have a connection. Kuwabara et  al. 2007, tested this assumption and found that Japanese participants preferred to continue to keep a relationship when the relationship was based on mutual profitability or trust. Trust in Strangers  Existing research has indicated that individualism (collectivism) is positively (negatively) associated with the width of general trust (e.g., Realo, Alik, & Greenfield, 2008; Yamagishi, 1988; Yamagishi, Cook, & Watabe, 1998). Consistent with these findings on the radius of trust, Kuwabara et al. 2007, hypothesized that Americans were more likely than Japanese to make entrustments to strangers. To test this prediction, they constructed a random utility model, in which the likelihood of selecting a stranger in each transaction was regressed onto nationality (X1), ingroup (X2), stranger (X3), X1*X2, X1*X3, relational commitment (mutuality, risk, and provocation), and in-group size of partner. The model was tested separately for flag-on and flag-off conditions. As a result, it was found that across different experimental conditions, both Americans and Japanese are likely to select a particular partner based on the frequency of mutuality (profitable reciprocity) or risk of betrayal - the more often they had mutually profitable transactions with that partner, the smaller had been the risk of being betrayed by that partner. They also found that in the flag-off condition, Americans were more likely than Japanese to

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initiate exchanges with strangers, while Japanese were less likely to do so in the flag-on conditions. It is important to note that in both experimental conditions, the main effect of nationality did not reach statistical significance. In sum, these results suggest that trust in strangers (irrespective of their in-group vs out-group memberships) tends to derive from expectations of being treated well as a trustworthy transaction partner. Commitment  Japanese participants were more likely to interact with fewer partners who they perceived to be trustworthy, rather than expand the interpersonal networks by actively seeking for new interactants. This tendency exemplifies how social networks are formed in high-context collectivistic cultures. Cooperation  In their experiment, Kuwabara et  al. 2007, paid little attention to cooperation. The reason for this probably lies in the conceptions of cooperation and betrayal held widely in the social dilemma research, where cooperation is defined as an act that maximizes the interest of the other and betrayal as an act that maximizes self-­interest. Taking a more reciprocal view of actions of two or more people, we propose that cooperation be redefined as bilateral actions of two or more people that are directed to foster mutual benefit or profit. In the context of Kuwabara et al.’s experiment, it occurs when a trustor transfers some or all of the initially provided endowment to a trustee, who in turn returns the amount received to the trustor. Although they did not receive much attention in Kuwabara et al.’s study, frequency of entrustments to in-group vs out-group members and frequency of cheating (not returning the amount received to) in-group vs out-group members suggest that for both Americans and Japanese, cooperation is more likely to occur when they interact with in-group members than with out-group members. It is reasonable to assume, however, that the group effect will become weaker or nonsignificant once the influences of relational commitment factors are adjusted for.

Practical Implications Implications from the Present State of the Research The Japanese workforce is rapidly shrinking due to Japan having the world’s lowest fertility rate. Japan’s working-age population (from 15 to 64 of age) peaked in 1995 (87 million) and subsequently entered into a long period of decline. It decreased to 84 million in 2005, fell below 77 million in 2015, and is projected to drop to 54 million in 2045 (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2017). This demographic snapshot indicates that Japan suffers and will continue to suffer from a looming shortage of workforce participation rate of those in the prime working age groups. The shrinking workforce may cause a drop in unemployment

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but is generally detrimental to the country’s economic growth. Thus, there is an urgent need to make up for the shrinkage in the numbers of working people. As a means of countering this situation, Japan has been taking big steps to open its doors to the international community. According to the Nikkei Asian Review (2019), the number of foreign workers has been consistently increasing from some 0.5 million in 2009, to around 0.9 million in 2015, to a record high of 1.46 million in 2018. This increase comes in part from Japan’s efforts to attract highly skilled foreign professionals by fast tracking their access to permanent residence. This came about with the introduction of the “points-based system for highly skilled foreign professionals” in 2012 that allows foreign researchers, corporate managers, and other categories of skilled workers to apply for permanent residency after as little as one year of living in Japan. In addition, foreigner-friendly policies do not just extend to high-­ caliber foreign professionals, but also prospectively to lower-skilled workers. On May 29, 2018, the Japanese government announced a draft law to accept more than 500,000 additional workers by the year 2025. This will be achieved by creating a new work visa status for lower-skilled workers and by lowering the bar on the level of Japanese language ability necessary to obtain work in Japan (Nikkei Shinbun, May 29, 2018). As the number of permanent foreign residents in Japan increases with these changes in policies, their families are also likely to follow, adding to the inflow of foreign residents in Japan. This continuous flow of foreigners into Japan raises an issue of intercultural adaptation. Foreign expatriates (non-Japanese individuals who come to Japan to work) and their families may affect the Japanese ways of thinking, doing, and living, while the sojourners need to adapt to the Japanese culture if they need or want to work seriously with their Japanese coworkers and customers in business or to enjoy living in harmony with the Japanese outside of the business. What seems to be important for this is probably intercultural trust between the Japanese people and the sojourners. This is particularly important in business because in the last 50 years, organizations are also increasingly relying on teams for solving problems, making decisions, serving customers, and so forth (Goodwin, Burke, Wildman, & Salas, 2009; Guzzo, 1995; Salas, Goodwin, & Burke, 2009). Working in teams of trustworthy members will increase the ability of employees to achieve these purposes as trust is an important lubricant of social interactions (Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990). We started with a brief review of Japanese culture. The notions of Markus and Kitayama’s 1991, independent vs interdependent selves and those of Hall’s 1976, low-context and high-context cultures provided us with conceptual tools and clues to explain how people vary in terms of their valuing of collectivistic vs individualistic orientations and how high- and low-contextual cues affect their thoughts, feelings, and actions. As for the research on trust and trustworthiness, we started with Yamagishi and Yamagishi’s (1994) seminal theory of trust. And it followed from the theory that in risky or uncertain social situations, Americans (or people with independent selves) tend to show higher levels of general trust than do Japanese (or people with interdependent selves), while Japanese, as compared with Americans, tend to place more

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weight on assurance-based trust characterized by mutually committed high-context in-group interpersonal relations that come from the comprehensive understanding of all of the parties involved. It is no exaggeration to say that most Japanese research on trust and trustworthiness has its origin in the early works of Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994). From their research followed a large body of experimental studies to understand how different people view the world differently through the lens of culture. Evidence repeatedly reported in the recent studies suggests that Americans tend to trust both in-group and out-group others more than Japanese, while Japanese tend more to trust in-­ group others with whom they have long-term committed relationship (e.g., Kiyonari et al., 2007; Suzuki et al., 2007), and that individualism (collectivism) is positively (negatively) associated with the width of general trust (e.g., Realo et  al., 2008; Yamagishi, Cook, & Watabe, 1998). Such sharp contrasts between two countries are dramatical and have attracted much attention from cross-cultural researchers. At least two practical implications would follow, if we take at face value all of these findings in which a binary or categorical view of Western vs Eastern differentiations is prominent: Implication 1. In order to foster business collaborations in Japan, expatriates need to invest time to initiate a relationship with Japanese coworkers that is characterized by mutual commitment, which is a big hurdle to overcome for the expats due to the relatively lower levels of general trust in Japan. Once such committed relationship based on assurance-­based trust is developed, however, business will run easily and smoothly without complicated paper works or background checks of the partner’s trustworthiness. Implication 2. For Japanese to be successful in business in an individualistic country, however, it is important to courageously take the opportunity cost to expand the radius of trust. Specifically, they need to identify a potential pool of partners and select trustworthy individuals from the pool who are reliable (high on knowledge, skills, and abilities needed in the business), honest and faithful in their words, willing to cooperate toward a common goal, and, if possible, nice to get along with.

But should we take the categorical or dichotomous view of cultural diversity? Are such binary demographic variables as East (as opposed to West) or the United States (as opposed to Japan) useful to explain cultural diversity? Our answer to these questions is No, even though such categorical explanations of cultural diversity are dramatic and theoretically very attractive. In order to acquire practical and useful knowledge for the workplace, we will need to move away from the overly simplistic “categorical” view and toward an acceptance of the “dimensional” view of culture, in which cultural values, like personality traits, fall along a continuum or continua. Looking away from the field of cross-cultural research and toward the field of gender research, we can easily find evidence that suggests that the American individualism merely represents the prominent values for American mainstream men who are typically socialized into agentic values involving self-expansion, self-­ assertion, autonomy, mastery, and competence, but not for American women who are typically socialized into communal values involving selflessness and affiliation or empathic concerns with others (see, e.g., Abele and Wojciszke, 2007; Cuddy et al., 2015; Hundhammer and Mussweiler, 2012).

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It is important to note that we are not proposing a dichotomous view of cultural values between men and women. Our intention is to provide evidence against the categorical explanations of cultural variations across countries. A most important question to be asked here concerns how we can proceed in terms of how we think about cultural diversity? Kuwabara et al.’s (2007) research reviewed above serves as a good starting point. Recall that the binary demographic variable, country (Japan vs U.S.A.), did not reach significance in predicting trust, trustworthiness, trust radius, and cooperation. It follows from these results that more attention needs to be paid to psychological variables that are more closely related to the criterion measures, leading to a third implication that would discount the importance of the implications previously presented: Implication 3. Because the explanations of cultural diversity based on the categorical/ dichotomous view tend to be biased, the use of a demographic variable (such as nationality) in the prediction of human behaviors will yield biased results. Thus, in order to explain or predict trust-related variables better, or to form a productive work team consisting of members of diverse cultural backgrounds, we should look toward such psychological variables as relational commitment, rather than simply taking nationalities into account.

To give a primary role to psychological variables and to relegate demographic ones to a subordinate role in determining trust and trustworthiness are very important for obtaining more practical and ethically sound implications, particularly when we make critical decisions related to human resources, such as selecting or deselecting members to form a productive work team or adding or reducing workers in an organization. It is very possible that such decisions, if made based on biased information related to nationality, race, sex, etc., will lead to various types of discrimination. To summarize, the present state of cross-cultural research says little about realistic measures to foster trust in workplaces and organizations in the real world. Similar criticisms have been recently leveled at the prevalence of the contrasting East vs West view of cultural diversity. For example, Vignoles and associates (2016) argue that this simplistic and narrow focus may have prevented us from advancing theoretical understandings of culture.

The Need for Explorative Studies As stated above, we subscribe to the dimensional (not dichotomous) view of cultural variability. Also, we hold that culture can be treated as a person’s characteristic individuality or selfhood that is not fixed over time but changeable when environmental demands change. Independent or interdependent selfhood is generated or maintained when or as long as environmental cues for independence or interdependence are prominent. With this in mind, we continue to discuss how we can proceed in terms of how we think about cultural diversity with respect to trust – especially in a country such as Japan that is currently increasing in cultural diversity. In order to do this, we must take a closer look at some of the weaknesses that characterize the existing cross-cultural research on trust.

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Validity  As reviewed previously, the participants most frequently used in the trust research are students, who are most conveniently available for laboratory experiments. Because students are a nonrepresentative subset of the population, it is ­possible that the previous research cannot be well generalized to the population as a whole, which is an issue of population validity or selection bias. Some research suggests that students, who are generally younger than random samples of the population, tend to exhibit more trust behavior than people who were relatively older (see, e.g., Bellemare and Kröger, 2007). Ecological validity is also a matter of concern. Even if students were the target population in the trust studies, it is a weak assumption until proven to be true that random assignment without random sampling can ensure the external validity of the experiment. As Vandello and Cohen (1999) indicated, regional variation of cultural values exists in the United States – individualist tendencies in the Mountain West and collectivistic tendencies in the Deep South. Likewise, it is possible that students in the capital city of Japan (Tokyo) may hold somewhat different cultural values as compared to those in Hokkaido, which is famous for its large production of rice (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 2019) and is where most of the samples in published Japanese trust research are from. Controlling the effects of such confounding factors as age and region (in addition to nationality, sex, race, and other demographic information) in predicting trust behavior would therefore heighten the internal validity of the trust research. Resource Exchanged  The level of trust or reciprocity is often measured by the amount of money exchanged between allocators and receivers of the resource in trust research using games. The amount at stake was 1,700 yen in Suzuki et al.’s (2007) study, while other researchers set the stakes smaller or larger. A question to be addressed for future research is how we can appropriately set the size of the stakes in the labs. If the size is too small, it simply means that there is not enough money to give and lose on the table, and without any real risk, there is little trust that is required. As the size increases, however, motives to success and to avoid failure in the lab may develop in participants, thereby affecting the intensity and frequency of trust behavior. A second and more important question that remains unanswered in the trust research to date is whether the trust we form with friends, family, coworkers, etc. can be explained in terms of exchanges of economic resources. There are also social resources we exchange with others that are beyond the scope of monetary exchange – friendship, love, respect, warmth, citizenship behavior, sportsmanship, etc. It is quite possible that future research will produce more fruitful and realistic implications by turning its attention more toward this kind of social exchanges. Unit of Analysis  Horizontally organized person-to-person interaction is the unit of analysis in the experimental research on trust most common in Japan. The focus on the dyadic relationship probably comes from an assumption that person-to-person transactions, where the decision of one party is described in functional relationship to the decision of the other party, represent a prototypic set of trustor-trustee rela-

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tions. The horizon of trust research can be extended by additional consideration of vertically organized leader-follower relations and trust people hold toward groups or organizations they have memberships in. If the attention is paid to the group or organization, then the unit of analysis is no longer person-person interaction. Cultural Facets  Because people live together, we have focused on collectivism vs individualisms and high-context vs low-context cultures. However, there is a little room left for us to pay attention to additional two facets that are important in Japan: honne/tatemae and tate-shakai. Honne (本音, pronounced as hon’ne) literally means “true sound” and implies a person’s true or inner intentions, thoughts, and feelings, while tatemae (建前, front or face of a building/house) refers to self-­ presentations a person makes (behaviors, emotions, opinions, etc.) in public according to socially accepted norms and values (Doi, 1986; Hall & Hall, 1976). It is quite often the case that people do not assert their own views that they believe are unique and different from social convention in Japan. The term tate-shakai (vertical society) is also a good descriptor of Japanese culture, where people are taught to respect the elderly, authority figures, or those with more experience or longer tenure in situations, such as companies, schools, and sports clubs. An individual with a good understanding of this culture can recognize the proper situations in which to use honorifics and polite language (Nakane, 1970). The addition of these two cultural facets might provide richer explanations of trust and trustworthiness in Japan. For example, the distinction between honne and tatemae, which is closely related to high-context cultures, can explain whether trust a person places on a group comes from genuine inner attitudes or from strong contextual cues that the group must take precedence over the individual. Tate-shakai can explain, for instance, why a person in a higher position or with longer experience in a group tends to be respected or trusted as a superior in Japan, even if s/he is not the smartest, nicest, or most reliable member in the group. This does not mean that people from Western countries always act on their internal thoughts and feelings or do not tend to respect or trust older people. Anyone, regardless of his or her nationality, would act on his/her public (not private) self or shows humble attitudes even toward someone who s/he thinks is not worthy of much respect when social cues for appropriateness suggest doing so. The point is a person’s behaviors tend to be influenced greatly by strong situations where contextual cues for appropriateness are widely shared. The difference between Japan and the West, if any, lies in the strength of the situation. As we have reviewed so far, Japanese culture, as compared to the Western cultures, can be characterized in terms of generally stronger imperatives for interpersonal harmony or feeling of oneness that often and implicitly suggest that people act on their public self and respect those with longer experience in group situations. Cultural Mix  New research questions await us, if we look toward member-­member relations within a group, member-group relations, or group-group relations as units of analyses. For instance, the questions such as below, if answered, will help us advance our understanding of trust and trustworthiness in the Japanese context:

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(a) How can we explain trust and trustworthiness among members within a work group or trust and trustworthiness among multiple groups within an organization? (b) How can we define and measure group characteristics in terms of multiple facets of culture? (c) Which cultural facets can make a greater contribution to work group performance  – collectivism, individualism, high contexts, low contexts, honne/ tatemae, or tate-shakai? (d) Do culturally homogeneous work groups tend to perform better than do culturally diverse work groups? (e) Are the answers to (c) and (d) contingent upon the structure of groups (e.g., formal vs informal or loosely vs tightly coupled) and/or the nature of tasks to be performed by the members (e.g., additive, serial, or reciprocal interdependence)? (f) What is the best way of mixing different cultures within a work group when heterogeneity is more likely to lead to productivity or needed more for the groups to adapt to changing environment? These are some unanswered questions organizational behavior researchers could explore further. The unit of analysis can be further extended to person-organization relations and to organization-organization relations, for example.

Summary The purpose of this article was to discuss how cross-cultural research on trust and trustworthiness can be applied to the workplace of Japan that is opening its doors widely to foreign workers. Before getting to this point directly, we started with a question about how cultures have been generated that codify norms and socially acceptable behaviors in human societies. From the anthropology literature, we learned how culture can be closely related to economic activities. For instance, the literature suggests that collectivism in Japan originates in the irrigation system where collective cooperation among farmers is a matter of life and death. We also learned that at least two contrasting cultures can coexist in a country. For example, collectivistic (individualistic) tendencies are found to be strong in the deep southern plantations (Mountain West and Great Plains) in the United States (see Vandello and Cohen, 1999), suggesting that the binary or classificatory approach to culture is overly simplistic for explaining cultural distance across countries. The second section of this chapter was devoted first to the review of Japanese culture and then to the review of literature on trust and trustworthiness in Japan. We learned that Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) interdependent and independent self-­ construals and Hall’s (1976) high-context and low-context cultures can be traced to collectivism and individualism, fundamental cultural facets for people who live together in societies.

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Drawing on the theoretical mappings of the self-culture relationships, Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994) put forward a unique theory in which they made a distinction between trust and assurance (or assurance-based trust). It was an interesting finding that in risky or uncertain social situations, Americans (or people with independent selves) tend to show higher levels of general trust than do Japanese (or people with interdependent selves), while Japanese, as compared with Americans, tend to place more weight on assurance-based trust that is based on mutually committed in-group interpersonal relations that come from the comprehensive and mutual understandings of all the parties involved, suggesting that the trust Americans and Japanese display does not differ in the amount, but in the type. From the works of Yamagishi and Yamagishi (1994) emerged a plethora of cross-­ cultural experimental research on trust in Japan. As discussed before, however, most studies have been remarkable for their lack of attention to intracultural variability. Alternatively, excessive attention has been paid to the differences between countries (e.g., Japan and America). As discussed earlier, this is an oversimplification of how people think, feel, and act. Recall the regional difference and gender difference reported by Vandello and Cohen (1999), Abele and Wojciszke (2007), Cuddy et al. (2015), and Hundhammer and Mussweiler (2012). Also, cultures can change over time. As stated before, Japanese culture has been influenced by the United States and other Western countries since the end of World War II. Specifically, Japanese society is gradually adopting individualistic values. For example, the basic act of education now fosters not only interpersonal harmony but also autonomy and self-reliance to enable children to become adults with an intercultural understanding spirit (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology – Japan, 2020). Unlike before or during the war, today’s children no longer believe that the emperor is an arahitogami (a living god) running or ruling the country. Also, a majority of Japanese companies (more than 91 percent as of 2014) have been chipping away at the system of traditional lifetime employment with seniority pay (Japan Times, 2014, 2019). Most Japanese now understand that their salary is contingent on individual performance, not just on years added in a company. In sum, most research to date has been colored by the categorical view of cultural variation across countries, which has created difficult problems in attempting to apply the research to the Japanese workplace that is increasingly globalized. Thus, we have addressed the need for much explorative research that goes beyond the classificatory view of cultural variation to embrace the dimensional view of the variation. Additionally, we pointed out some weaknesses of the research design employed in the past research and discussed how we can proceed in terms of how we think of trust and trustworthiness in the real work situations, not in the laboratory settings. We believe that future efforts to address those issues will help us not only advance our understanding of trust and trustworthiness in the real world but also create healthy workplaces in which employees with diverse cultural backgrounds can work side by side to achieve personal and organizational goals.

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Yuichiro Kanazawa is Professor of Statistics at the International Christian University, Japan. He received his PhD (1988) in Statistics from Yale University, worked at the New York University Medical Center for 3 years, and then taught probability and statistics courses for 25 years at the University of Tsukuba where he was made Professor Emeritus in 2017. Professor Kanazawa has published articles in the USA, Great Britain, and Japan on mathematical statistics, econometrics, empirical industrial organization and marketing science, organizational behavior, and quantitative criminology. Since 2014, he has been serving the Ministry of Justice, Japan, as a statistical consultant to evaluate the deterrent effects of various psychological treatments for the incarcerated. His research interests in trustfulness and trustworthiness research stem partly from his interest in the bounds of rationality of people.  

Afterword Catherine T. Kwantes

Trust has been termed a “fundamental resource,” while at the same time researchers acknowledge that globally there is a “growing demand” coinciding with a “growing deficit” of trust (Misztal, 2019). Certainly, trust reflects something fundamental about the human condition. Children as young as 5 years old develop mechanisms to determine which “others” can be trusted based on determinations of trustworthiness, such as keeping promises and showing kindness (Isella Kanngeisser & Tomasello, 2019). There is ample literature about “propensity to trust” as a personality characteristic (Freitag & Bauer, 2016), as well as evidence that personality is involved at multiple stages of the trust process (Alarcon, Lyons, Christensen, Bowers, Klosterman, & Capiola, 2017). Yet these personality characteristics inevitably play out in social settings and in cultural contexts, resulting in decisions related to trust and trustworthiness, therefore reflecting a complex interplay between personality and situation. An integrated conceptualization of the construct was offered by Peter Ping Li (2007) who suggested that there are four dimensions inherent in all understandings of trust: “(i) trustor’s uncertainty of trustee’s dependability, (ii) trustor’s vulnerability of dependency, (iii) trustor’s expectation of trustee’s trustworthiness, and (iv) trustor’s willingness of trustfulness (referred to as the desire or intention to place trust in others)” (p. 424). While the construct and behaviors related to trust may be universal – in that trust is always a “leap of faith” (Luhmann, 2012) and always includes a willingness to be vulnerable (Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt, & Camerer, 1998) – contexts in which decisions to trust nevertheless take place have implications for understanding trust and trustworthiness. In fact, an understanding of trust and its consequences comes most clearly from a situated cognition perspective (Kramer, 2006), where the interplay C. T. Kwantes Baltimore, MD, USA

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between cognitive processes and what is experienced in the social world an ­individual inhabits is explicitly acknowledged (Semin & Smith, 2013). Moreover, the myriad of ways in which decisions to trust are actually enacted are also impacted by unique contextual factors. Trust – and by extension, trustworthiness – are social constructions (Wright & Ehnert, 2010) and have both universal and culturally specific determinants, as well as outcomes (cf Ferrin & Gillespie, 2010). The chapters in this book highlight the importance of context in both making decisions about trust, as well as determining who is trustworthy. While trust is fundamental to human experiences, the social cognition perspective highlights the fact that societal cultures provide the expectations that are used in gauging other people’s intentions and behaviors. Each chapter has provided a glimpse into historical and social factors that impact such expectations and, in turn, where trust and trustworthiness are likely to exist. Institutions and organizations in each cultural context are further impacted by situational factors that exist within these cultures and may have their own subset of expectations against which behaviors are measured. Both the findings from the International Trustworthiness Study (see Appendix in this volume) and findings from sources, such as the World Values Survey (Inglehart et al., 2014) show clear differences across societies on the degree of generalized trust held by members of those societies, as well as the extent to which various entities within each society are trusted. In each of the chapters in this volume, the authors have reviewed various cultural factors specific to each context that have impacted trust and trustworthiness. The chapter authors in this book also highlight the extent to which social cultures and the historical factors that have been at play have implications for trust and decisions related to trustworthiness. While it may be informative to address cultural differences using frameworks such as Hofstede’s dimensions (2001), Schwartz’s Universal Value dimensions (1992), the Social Axioms framework (Leung, Bond, et al., 2002) and others, such an approach does not capture the richness and uniqueness of any specific cultural context nor provide a deep level of understanding of how culture impacts trust and trustworthiness within a context. Moving forward, we echo Ferrin and Gillespie (2010) who stated “Do not ignore trust. It is crucial for organizational cusses and individual wellbeing” (p. 78) and further admonished readers to “Ignore cultural differences at your peril” (p. 79). It is hoped that this volume will highlight the importance of understanding trust and trustworthiness within societal cultural context, highlighting the importance of delving beyond generalized characteristics of any given culture. Further, it is hoped that this volume will prompt further research to dive into the particulars of trust-in-­ context more deeply. This is an endeavor that will require scholars familiar with both trust and the contexts within which trust occurs. It will require going beyond quantitative, comparative work to uncovering the deeper level assumptions and meanings that can only come from qualitative research. Cultures are rich sources of information for those that live in them, yet much of this information is unexamined and unquestioned. Those living within a culture often see the world through a particularistic lens that, unless called into question, can be assumed to be a universal

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lens. A true understanding of decisions to trust, as well as assessments of ­trustworthiness, considers the entities involved, as well as the contexts within which those determinants are made.

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Appendix

The International Trustworthiness Study Principal Investigator: Catherine T. Kwantes. Collaborators: Ben C. H. Kuo, Suzanne McMurphy. In-country Collaborators: Zhao Ran, Chris Leupold, Erhabor Idemudia, Yuichiro Kanazawa, Shinichiro Watanabe, Lilach Sagiv, Sharon Arieli, Amir Talaei, Juliana Porto, Yohannes Asmare Chekole, Iris Lin, L Prasad. Special thanks to: Tolu Taiwo, Kaitlin Smyth, Cathy Burr, Twiladawn Stonefish, Arief Kartolo. The International Trustworthiness Study (ITS) surveyed students in 12 countries, using both open-ended questions regarding descriptions of trustworthy individuals in specific roles, and established survey questions to measure cultural variables at the individual level. Undergraduate university students were specifically selected for this work as the intent was to develop stereotypical information about trustworthiness within roles for each cultural context. As young adults, students have had time to absorb cultural information, as well as to have developed prototypes of what would be expected of individuals in various social roles. Students are young people who are preparing to enter the job market and therefore pay some attention to the employment and work situation yet have little or no job experience yet. Thus, it was thought that the descriptions of trustworthy individuals in the workplace would be based on cultural input rather than personal input and would therefore be more strongly reflective of culture than experience. The survey was conducted online, following University of Windsor Research Ethics Board approval. Where ethics review boards existed at a university where collaborators worked, approval was gained from that university as well. Once approved by the ethics boards at the participating university, as well as when no ethics review board existed, the University of Windsor Research Ethics Board

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7

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approval was sought and given for data collection in each cultural context. All appropriate ethics codes were therefore followed for data collection. Respondents came from 12 countries: Brazil, Canada, China, Ethiopia, India, Israel, Iran, Japan, Lebanon, South Africa, Taiwan, and the USA (see Table 1). The survey was administered in English where possible and where not was translated into the local language. In all, eight languages were included: Portuguese, English, simplified Mandarin Chinese, traditional Mandarin Chinese, Amharic, Hebrew, Farsi, and Japanese. Data were collected via an online survey. All qualitative responses were translated back into English. Backtranslation and reconciliation were employed where possible. When that was not possible, a bilingual individual checked the translations for accuracy. Due to technical problems with the nature of the online survey in Ethiopia, those responses could not be included in the final ITS dataset. For the qualitative portion of the survey, respondents completed the following sentences in their own words: 1. “A trustworthy person is someone who is or will …” 2. “A trustworthy family member is someone who is or will …” 3. “A trustworthy friend is someone who is or will …” 4. “A trustworthy employee is someone who is or will …” 5. “A trustworthy colleague is someone who is or will …” 6. “A trustworthy supervisor/employer is someone who is or will …”. They were then asked to respond to survey items from the following scales: 1. Power distance (Clugston, Howell, & Dorfman, 2000). 2. Social cynicism and social complexity (Leung & Bond et al., 2002). 3. General trust and general caution (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994). 4. Independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal (Singelis, 1994). Table 1  Sample characteristics Brazil Canada China India Iran Israel Japan Lebanon South Africa Taiwan USA

Total number of respondents 147 256 160 332 147 177 236 227 196 110 329

Female Number/age/SD 96/19.6/3.0 110/19.2/3.3 85/19.7/1.6 281/20.1/1.5 127/18.9/4.0 90/20.1/4.7 56/19.4/1.4 152/18.8/1.3 154/18.7/4.3 57/19.5/2.8 259/19.1/1.4

Male Number/age/SD 51/19.1/4.2 146/18.5/4.6 75/19.8/2.6 51/19.8/1.6 20/17.5/5.7 87/mode 23–24(61.7%) 180/19.2/1.4 75/18.8/1.0 42/19.7/3.7 53/20.3/2.9 70/19.0/2.3

Means and standard deviations based on those who responded to the question regarding age – some datasets had missing values representing less than 2% of the responses

a

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5. Metapersonal self-construal (Stroink & DeCicco, 2011). 6. Tolerance for ambiguity (Kajs & McCollum, 2009). Two trained research assistants coded the qualitative responses according to the Ability, Benevolence, and Integrity (ABI) framework proposed by Mayer, Schoorman, and Davis (1995). Additionally, an “Other” category was added to capture descriptors that did not fit well within the ABI framework. Each role within each cultural context was coded separately. The following codes were used: 0  1  2  3  4  5 

This basis for trustworthiness is absent in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is present but barely in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is represented to a minor degree in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is clearly represented in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is strongly represented in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is strongly emphasized in the response.

Thus, each response was given a four-digit code reflecting how strongly each basis for trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, integrity, and/or something else) was represented in the response. After independently coding the responses, the research assistants met to compare any differences in coding and collaboratively reconciled any discrepancies to arrive at the final coding of the responses. In post hoc analyses, however, it became apparent that the distinction between a basis for trustworthiness that was “barely” present and one that was present “to a minor degree” was not meaningful, so these categories were collapsed, and the final coding was as follows: 0  1  2  3  4 

This basis for trustworthiness is absent in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is represented to a minor degree in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is clearly represented in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is strongly represented in the response. This basis for trustworthiness is strongly emphasized in the response.

For the quantitative data, participants were asked to respond to each of the statements on either a five-point or a seven-point Likert scale. Following missing data analysis using Little’s missing completely at random (MCAR) statistic and determining that data were not always missing completely at random, multiple imputation was used to assess the psychometrics of the scales. Despite the fact that the scales used have been shown to have sound psychometric properties in previous research in various cultural contexts, the Cronbach alpha coefficients for many of the measures in this dataset indicated that their reliability was too low to be used. While some measures had appropriate reliabilities in some cultural contexts, but not others, the only measures with reliabilities consistently sound across all samples were social cynicism and general trust (see Table 2). Responses to the other scales were removed from the ITS database.

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170 Table 2  Scale reliabilities 1. Social cynicism a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. 2. General trust a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k.

Brazil Canada China India Iran Israel Japan Lebanon South Africa Taiwan USA

0.731–0.744 0.721–0.734 0.776–0.791 0.730–0.736 0.679–0.689 0.763–0.775 0.716–0.721 0.686–0.690 0.744–0.760 0.787–0.799 0.732–0.738

Brazil Canada China India Iran Israel Japan Lebanon South Africa Taiwan USA

0.752–0.752 0.773–0.778 0.859–0.860 0.807–0.810 0.747–0.749 0.813–0.818 0.858–0.860 0.696–0.703 0.743–0.757 0.814–0.817 0.717–0.754

References Clugston, M., Howell, J. P., & Dorfman, P. W. (2000). Does Cultural Socialization Predict Multiple Bases and Foci of Commitment? Journal of Management, 26(1), 5–30. Kajs. L. T., & McCollum, D. L. (2009). Examining tolerance for ambiguity in the domain of educational leadership. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 13(2), 1–16. Leung, K., Bond, M.  H., Reimel de Carrasquel, S., Muñoz, C., Hernández, M., Murakami, F., Yamaguchi, S., Bierbrauer, G., & Singelis, T. M. (2002). Social axioms: The search for universal dimensions of general beliefs about how the world functions. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 33, 286–302. Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. The Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734. https://doi-org.ledproxy2.uwindsor.ca/10.2307/258792 Singelis, T.  M. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-­construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(5), 580–591. https://doi. org/10.1177/0146167294205014 Stroink, M., & DiCicco, T. (2011). Culture, religion, and the underlying value dimensions of the metapersonal self-construal. Mental Health, Religion, & Culture, 14(9), 917–934. Yamagishi, T., & Yamagishi, M. (1994). Trust and commitment in the United States and Japan. Motivation and Emotion, 18(2), 129–166. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02249397

Index

A Ability, benevolence, and integrity (ABI), 4 Africa agricultural development programmes, 45 communalism, 43 communitarianism, 40 cultural diversity, 42 cultural perspective, 39–41 economic well-being, 45 educational sector, 44 employees’ trust, 45 ethical behaviours, 45 ethnic diversity vs. trust, 42 experiential perspective, 39, 40 fairness model, 43 humanity, 40 individual external factors, 41 institutional trust, 44 mental well-being, 44 political trust, 45 proposed model, 44 slave trade, 35, 36, 41 slavery, 36, 37 social trust, 42 societal homogeneity, 42 traditional cultural value, 40 trust, 35, 36, 39, 45 trustworthiness, 39, 43 Ubuntu, 40 Agricultural development programmes, 45 Altruism, 45 Anglophones, 121, 122, 131

B Brazil behavioral sciences, 27 broad media coverage, 27 confidence, 26 corruption scandals, 26 cross-cultural research, 19, 20 cultural differences, 20 cultural features, 20 dimensions of, 20 emic, 21, 22 geopolitical regions, 20 GLOBE project, 20 good practices, 27 interpersonal relationships, 18 Jeitinho (see Jeitinho) language, 19 Latin America, 19 norms and policies, 27 organizational policies, 27 organizations, 26, 27 psychology, 27 punishment and control, 27 scam tactics, 18, 19 schools, 27 sociocultural feature, 27 trust, 21, 22, 26, 27 WVS, 20, 21 C Canada Anglophones, 121, 131 beliefs, 120

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. T. Kwantes, B. C. H. Kuo (eds.), Trust and Trustworthiness across Cultures, Springer Series in Emerging Cultural Perspectives in Work, Organizational, and Personnel Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56718-7

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Index

172 Canada (cont.) economic system, 123 employees, 127 Franco-Canadians, 120, 121, 131, 132 Francophones, 131 indigenous peoples, 121, 132, 133 individualism vs. collectivism, 129 institutions, 128 masculinity vs. femininity, 129, 130 multiculturalism, 123 organizations, 128 political system, 122 population, 127 power distance, 128, 129 recent immigrants, 122, 133, 134 residents, 123 social democracy, 122, 123 Trust Barometer, 127 trust type, 128 uncertainty avoidance, 130, 131 values, 120 workers, 120 Cognitive trust, 125, 126 Cognitive-based trust, 64 Collectivism, 73, 74, 83, 129, 140–142 Confucian ethics, 57, 58 Confucian societies, 60, 61 Confucian values, 57 Confucianism, 53–55, 57, 58, 60, 66 Corruption scandals, 26, 28 Cultural perspective, 39–41 Cultural safety, 133 D Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), 64, 65 Devoutness, 72 Direct evidence, 38 Distrust, 36, 37, 41, 82 E Ecological validity, 154 Economic conditions, 77, 84 Economic resources, 154 Economic war, 77 Emotions, 7 Environmental organizations, 106 Experiential perspective, 39, 40 External organizations, 63 External trust, 63, 66

F Federal Savings Bank (CEF), 17, 18 Five Dragons, 57 Foreigner-friendly policies, 151 Future orientation, 80 G Generalized reciprocity theory, 147, 148 Geopolitical regions, 20 GLOBE Project, 130 H High-power-distance societies, 80 Hofstede rating scale, 130 Homogeneity, 42 I Immigrants, 122, 133, 134 Indigenous peoples, 121, 132, 133 Individualism, 99, 129, 142 Individualistic achievement, 82, 83 Individualistic cultures, 8 In-group collectivism, 73, 83 Institutional-based trust, 105 Institutional collectivism, 73, 82 Integrity, 101, 102, 109, 125 Inter-cultural awareness, 81 Internal organizational trust, 63, 66 International trust, 79 Interpersonal trust, 10, 61, 62 Iran Arab countries, 72 collectivism, 73, 74 cultural practices, 72 devout, 72 inefficient governance, 77, 78 international trust, 79 language, 72 organizational culture inefficient teamwork, 85, 86 institutional collectivism, 82 leaders’ mistrust, employees, 85 mistrust, future, 84 mistrust, organizational decision-­ making, 83, 84 organizational failures, mistrust in leaders, 84, 85 power distance, 74 powerholder corruption, 78, 79

Index principles, 72 religious teachings, 72 revolution, 75, 76 safe keeper, 72 societal culture brain drain, 80 cultural component adjustments, 81 future orientation, 80 revolution, 81, 82 trust level, 73 uncertainty avoidance, 74, 75 war, 76, 77 West Asia, 72 Islamic revolution, 75 J Japan cognition, 143 collectivism vs. individualisms, 144, 155 cross-cultural research, 152, 153 cultural diversity, 152, 153 cultural mix, 155, 156 cultural variations, 153 emotions, 143 fertility rate, 150 foreign expatriates, 151 foreigner-friendly policies, 151 group trust formation, 146–148 highly skilled foreign professionals, 151 indirectness, 144 in-group vs. out-group trust, 145, 146 intercultural adaptation, 151 interdependent self-construal and collectivism, 142, 143 language ability, 151 motivation, 143 resource exchange, 154 rice culture, 140–142 sensitivity, 144 shrinking workforce, 150 society, 145 tate-shakai, 155 trust, 148, 149, 152 trustworthiness commitment, 150 cooperation, 150 durability of relations, 149 trust in strangers, 149, 150 unit of analysis, 154

173 validity, 154 verbal messages, 144 web-based experiment, 148 working-age population, 150 Jeitinho behavioral script, 22 behavioral strategy, 26 Brazil, 23–25 cultural feature, 23, 25 cultural syndrome, 23, 28 definition, 22 dimensions, 22 dispositional variable, 23 distrust, 24, 25 distrust bias, 25 factors, 22 features, 23 justification, 25 malandro, 23 multidimensional construct, 22 politics, 25 psychological dimensions, 28 public policies, 26 scenarios, 23 simpatia, 24, 26 simpatico, 23–25 social behavior, 26 social bonds, 25 social cognition, 25 social influence strategies, 24 social norms sanctions, 26 social relationships, 24 trust, 24, 25 WVSW, 24 K Kuomintang (KMT), 64, 65 L Leadership perception, 11 Lifelong openness model, 39 M Masculine society, 130 Mianzi, 59 Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 43 Mistrust, 81, 85 Multiculturalism, 123

Index

174 N Negro-African society, 36 O Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 37 Organizational culture description, 9 economic exchange, 9 employees, 5, 9 inefficient teamwork, 85, 86 institutional collectivism, 82 interpersonal trust assessments, 5 leaders’ mistrust, employees, 85 mistrust, future, 84 mistrust, organizational decision-­ making, 83, 84 organizational failures, mistrust in leaders, 84, 85 productivity, 10 societal cultures, 3 trust, 10 trustworthiness, 9–11 Organizational justice, 112, 113 Organizational practices, 83 Organizational settings, United States commitment-based practices, 110 democracy, 110 employees, 109, 110, 112 employees’ trust, 113 integrity, 109 leadership styles, 109, 113 national and global levels, 112 organizational justice, 109, 112, 113 quality and quantity, 110 subordinate vs. supervisor, 108, 110 subordinates’ trust, 109, 110 transformational leaders, 113 trust, 111 trustor factors, 109 Organizational trust, 63, 64 P Parental socialization, 40 Persistence model, 39 Political system, 122 Political trust, 45, 64, 65, 67 Power distance, 74, 78, 83, 86, 99, 100, 107, 128, 129 Powerholder corruption, 78, 79 Presumptive evidence, 38 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), 37 Psychology, 27, 145

R Relational mobility, 61 Renqing, 58, 59 Republic of China (ROC), 64 Revolution, 75, 76, 81, 82 Rice culture, 140–142 collectivism, 140, 141 community-level longitudinal survey, 141 deepwater-resistant paddy rice, 141 irrigation infrastructures, 141 irrigation system, 141 Japan, 140 social and economic autonomy, 140 Risk taking in relationship (RTR), 102 S Safe keeper, 72 Scam tactics, 19 Slave trade, 36, 37, 41 Slavery, 36, 37 Social bonds, 25 Social capital, 37, 38 Social cognition, 25, 164 Social cynicism, 8, 37 Social democracy, 122 Social exchanges, 154 Social identity theory, 146, 148 Social institutions, 82 Social interactions, 124 Social media, 29, 81, 105 Social resources, 154 Social trust, 42, 132 Social uncertainty, 21, 145 Socialization, 39 Societal culture, 2, 4, 7 brain drain, 80 cultural component adjustments, 81 future orientation, 80 revolution, 81, 82 trust, 7, 8 trustworthiness, 8, 9 Societal functions, 53 Societal norms, 53 Spiritual homelessness, 133 Stability of society, 54 Supervisor trustworthiness, 11 Survey measured trust, 35 T Taiwan Confucian societies, 60, 61 Confucianism, 54, 55, 57, 58 guanxi, 58–61, 67

Index interpersonal trust, 61, 62 organizational trust, 63, 64 political trust, 64, 65 relational mobility, 61 trust, 55, 56, 60 Xin (信), 55, 56 Teammate mistrust, 85 Trust Africa (see Africa) African languages, 34 Brazil (see Brazil) Canada (see Canada) China, 6 civilization, 38 cognitive processes, 164 concept, 124 definition, 3, 34, 53, 100, 124, 125 description, 1, 120 development, 38 dimensions, 163 direct evidence, 38 employee commitment, 120 fundamental resource, 163 human interaction, 1 human relationships, 4 individuals, 101 institutions, 164 Iran (see Iran) Jeitinho (see Jeitinho) job satisfaction, 120 levels, 126, 127 misplaced/abuse, 2 organizational culture, 10 organizations, 164 personality characteristics, 163 presumptive evidence, 38 prosocial behaviours, 38 risk/willingness, 2 social capital, 38 social cognition, 164 social constructions, 164 social tool, 126 societal culture, 4, 7, 8, 164 society, 38 South Africa/Botswana, 34 Taiwan (see Taiwan) trustee, 38 trusting behaviors, 102 trustor, 38 types, 125, 126 well-function societies, 38 willingness, 3 Trustworthiness Africa (see Africa) African languages, 34

175 assessment, 5, 127 characteristics, 125 China, 9 culture contexts, 2 definition, 3 humans, 2 individuals, 3, 4 Iran (see Iran) organizational cultures, 2, 3, 10, 11 role relationships, 6 role/extra-role behaviors, 6 social constructions, 164 social context, 2 social decision-making processes, 6 social relationship, 5 societal culture, 2, 8, 9, 164 Taiwan (see Taiwan) trustee, 38 trustor’s assessment, 101 WVS, 164 Trustworthy employees, 11 U Uncertainty avoidance, 74, 75, 130, 131 United States agencies, 96 citizens, 103, 104, 107 citizens’ trust, 112 Civil Rights Act, 104 computer, 96 contextual variables, 112 cultural dimensions, national level, 98, 99 cultural revolution, 104 culture, 98 democracy, 111 distrust, 105 endogenous social interaction effects, 103 environmental organizations, 106 global stage, 96 government, 105 heroes, 97 individualism, 99 indulgence, 99 institution, 106 institutional-based trust, 105 institutions, 108 media, 105, 106 organizational practices, 108 organizational settings (see Organizational settings, United States) organizations, 112 politics, 105 power distance, 99, 100, 107, 112 principle of democracy, 97

Index

176 United States (cont.) protest activities, 108 pursue innovation, 99 relational trust, 107 rituals, 97 social injustices, 98 social media, 105 societal cultures, 98 societal institutions, 112 symbols, 97 trust, 95, 96, 104 Trust Barometer, 105 uncertainly avoidance, 99 United Kingdom, 99 values, 97

white Christians, 97 work setting, 108, 112 workforce composition, 108 V Vulnerability, 145 W Winning ticket scam, 18 Work setting, 108 World Values Survey (WVS), 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 36, 62, 65, 128, 164