以往研究指出,信任有其家庭根源。以116个家庭中的子女及其父母为研究对象考察在家庭中,父母信任水平是否相似,父母和子女之间是否存在人际信任的代际传递现象。研究采用投资博弈问卷分别测量了子女和父母的信任水平,并以送出数量和估计返还数量作为信任的测量指标。结果发现:(1)子女和父母在投资博弈中均表现出一定水平的信任,且父母的信任表现出相似性;(2)在估计返还数量上,信任表现出代际传递,且传递存在性别差异:父亲和母亲的信任水平不能预测女孩的信任水平,能预测男孩信任水平;父亲对男孩的影响呈J型曲线,母亲与男孩的信任水平呈倒u型曲线关系。
Previous studies on intergenerational transmission found that parents could transmit some of their characteristics, values and behaviors to their children. Some researchers concluded that the level of parent' interpersonal trust might correlate to that of their child, that is, there exists intergenerational transmission of interpersonal trust. However, few studies have found evidence for the conclusion or hypothesis. Recently, a study conducted in Germany found that father and mother had the similar level of trust and this positive assortative mating reinforced the impact of parents on children. By now, no empirical research has been done in China to examine the relationship of father's and mother's trust level, and intergenerational transmission of trust Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how parents' trust correlate to each other and predict their child's trust. Research in this aspect may shed light on the family origins of people's interpersonal trust. Based on a Chinese sample of 116 parents-child pairs, the present study aimed to examine whether there was significant similarity of father's and mother's interpersonal trust in the same family, and whether parents' trust could be transmitted to their children or not. The study collected participants' responses to trust game presented in a questionnaire so as to measure their interpersonal trust. Each child participant was asked to decide how many chocolates would he or she like to send a strange child and to guess how many chocolates would the strange child return to him or her after receiving participant's chocolates. Each parent participant was also asked the similar questions, except that what being sent and returned were not chocolates but money. Both the numbers of chocolates the child participant sending and estimating to be returned were the indices of interpersonal trust. In the same way, both the amounts of money the parent participant sending and estimating to be returned was used to measure the level of interpersonal tr