ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2013, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (3): 336-344.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2013.00336

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

信任:父母的代内相似和亲子的代际传递

池丽萍   

  1. (中华女子学院儿童发展与教育学院, 北京 100101)
  • 收稿日期:2012-06-15 发布日期:2013-03-20 出版日期:2013-03-20
  • 通讯作者: 池丽萍
  • 基金资助:

    国家社会科学基金项目(11CSH046)。

Trust: Parents’ Similarity and Parent-Child Transmissibility

CHI Liping   

  1. (School of Child Development and Education, China Women’s University, Beijing 100101 China)
  • Received:2012-06-15 Online:2013-03-20 Published:2013-03-20
  • Contact: CHI Liping

摘要: 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。

关键词: 信任, 代内相似, 代际传递, 投资博弈

Abstract: 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 trust. The results showed that (1) children and their fathers and mothers exhibited trust to some extent in the investment game. (2) There was a significant positive correlation between the levels of father’s and mother’s interpersonal trust (i.e., a kind of intragenerational similarity), except that the estimated amounts of being returned of boys’ fathers and mothers were not correlated. (3) Gender of the child impacted on the strength of intergenerational transmission. Parents’ trust could not predict daughter’s trust; whereas they did for sons. The transmission patterns of father and mother were different: the relationship of father’s and son’s trust levels fit a positive quadratic model but data of mother’s and son’s trust fit a negative quadratic model. The present study has potentially important implications for understanding the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of interpersonal trust, and it sheds light on the basic question of where trust comes from.

Key words: trust, intragenerational similarity, intergenerational transmission, investment game