信任的跨文化差异研究:视角与方法

A Review of Cultural Differences of Trust: Perspectives and Methods

信任作为一种复杂的社会心理现象,其相关研究不能脱离个体所处的文化背景。个体在一般信任水平,信任的建立方式,信任的种类及信任修复的方式等方面都存在着显著的跨文化差异。信任存在跨文化差异的主要原因在于个体对线索的提取方式不同、所处社会文化情境不同及文化的变迁。量化研究和质性研究相结合的方法是信任研究主要采用的方法,其中卡片分类与深度访谈相结合法、"桌面游戏"法最受研究者的青睐。未来的研究应该进一步探查信任的本土化概念,并关注全球化背景下不同文化下个体的人际信任建立的问题。

Trust is a complex social and psychological phenomenon on which related studies emerged in 1960s. With the developmentof globalization and the cultural integration, the interpersonal trust among different ethnic individuals who have different cultural back-grounds is becoming more and more complex. Recently researchers have begun to focus on the role that culture plays in trust - building.Some researchers believe that trust is a cuhural - embedding phenomenon. The establishment and maintenance of trust depends on theparticular social structures and cultural context. The purpose of this article is to describe and summarize the studies on trust, which in-clude the study＇s perspectives and methodologies. We expect it to deepen our understanding of cultural differences on trust and providesome new ideas for future research. Trust can be defined as a positive expectation towards another person＇s behavior although universally accepted definition exists. In-dividuals with different cultural backgrounds display significant differences in general trust levels, ways of establishing trust, types oftrust and the repair of trust. Generally speaking, Westerners have a higher trust levels than Easterners. In trust building, Westerners a-dopt calculation rules and evaluate the ability of the partner who can promise maximized benefits. However, predictions, reason andtransformation are the main ways Easterners include the factor of sentiment. Different models of extraction cues, different social and cul-tural context, cultural norms and cultural transition are the main reasons leading to the difference. Methods of combining qualitative a-nalysis and quantitative data are used in cross - cultural studies. Specifically, questionnaires, card sorting and in - depth interviewscombined with ＂board game＂ approaches are the most popular ones. These methods can avoid the bias of the understanding of trust andfurther gain meaningful results. Though researchers have paid attention to the influence of cultural differences on trust, most of them fo-cus on describing it, few of them focus on the indigenous study and the specific cultural icons of trust. Several directions of future studies are as follows （ 1 ） To study and embody the indigenous concept of trust ; there is differentmeaning of trust in different cultures and the indigenous concept of trust is necessary in the relevant studies ; （2） To explore the specificcuhural icons in trust building such as face, human feelings （Renqing in Chinese）, and relationship （Guanxin in Chinese） ; （3） Toinvestigate the influence of cultural transitions on trust, which means the changeability of trust in different cultural context from the lon-gitudinal perspective; （4） To inquire the mixed trust of people with different cultural background through globalization.