TY - JOUR
T1 - Trust as social investment
T2 - A life-history model of environmental effects on ingroup and outgroup trust
AU - Zhu, Nan
AU - Lu, Hui Jing
AU - Chang, Lei
N1 - Funding Information:
This research has been funded by a General Research Fund (Project 15608415) from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong SAR. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the RGC.
Funding Information:
This research has been funded by a General Research Fund (Project 15608415 ) from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong SAR . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the RGC.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2021/1/1
Y1 - 2021/1/1
N2 - Trust among closely-related individuals (ingroup) and trust among non-related individuals (outgroup) can be seen as different social investment that involves different life-history tradeoffs. We tested this life-history model using the World Values Survey and the World Health Organization datasets and examined how ingroup and outgroup trust are related to sex, individual-level resource availability, and society-level environmental threats. Results show that, at the individual level, financially disadvantaged people trusted ingroups less. At the societal level, violent-conflict threats were associated with lower ingroup and outgroup trust. Furthermore, higher disease-caused mortality was associated with lower ingroup trust but not lower outgroup trust. Moreover, fertility was associated with lower outgroup trust but not lower ingroup trust. We also found that the sex effect (men trusted others more than women did) was more prominent in societies with greater violent-conflict threats and higher fertility, but less prominent in societies with lower mortality from communicable diseases. These findings are explained within the life-history framework.
AB - Trust among closely-related individuals (ingroup) and trust among non-related individuals (outgroup) can be seen as different social investment that involves different life-history tradeoffs. We tested this life-history model using the World Values Survey and the World Health Organization datasets and examined how ingroup and outgroup trust are related to sex, individual-level resource availability, and society-level environmental threats. Results show that, at the individual level, financially disadvantaged people trusted ingroups less. At the societal level, violent-conflict threats were associated with lower ingroup and outgroup trust. Furthermore, higher disease-caused mortality was associated with lower ingroup trust but not lower outgroup trust. Moreover, fertility was associated with lower outgroup trust but not lower ingroup trust. We also found that the sex effect (men trusted others more than women did) was more prominent in societies with greater violent-conflict threats and higher fertility, but less prominent in societies with lower mortality from communicable diseases. These findings are explained within the life-history framework.
KW - Behavioral immune system
KW - Environmental threats
KW - Gender difference
KW - Life history theory
KW - Pathogen prevalence
KW - Trust
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089598498&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.paid.2020.110303
DO - 10.1016/j.paid.2020.110303
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85089598498
SN - 0191-8869
VL - 168
JO - Personality and Individual Differences
JF - Personality and Individual Differences
M1 - 110303
ER -
