The Impact of Authority on Cooperation : A cross-cultural examination of systemic trust
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40750-014-0011-3 |
| Field | Philosophy and religion |
| Keywords | trust; authority; religion; secular; cross-cultural; economic experiment |
| Description | In this article, we examine the effects of authority on systemic trust in four different countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Mauritius, and the USA). We used a modified Trust Game to assess whether information about salient authority either in a religious or in a secular domain has the effect of enhancing trust in situations where social information is limited. We found that patterns of behavior differ by country, with the USA and the Czech Republic behaving similarly with relatively high trust for secular authorities, medium trust for religious authorities, and low trust for non-authorities, and that Denmark and Mauritius behave similarly, with medium trust for secular authorities, high trust for religious authorities and low trust for non-authorities. We discuss possible explanations involving how people use social information to make decisions in situations of uncertainty. |
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