IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v27y2015i3p334-357.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ties that bind: Family relationships and social trust

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco Herreros

    (Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-IPP), Spain)

Abstract

There have been two main arguments concerning the effects of family relationships on social trust. The first claims that the intensity of the family relationship reduces the capacity of the family members to interact in the outside world, where social uncertainty prevails. The second considers that trust inside the family spills over into trust in strangers. There is a corollary to the first argument: intense family relationships, by reducing social trust, affect community development negatively. In this article, I show, first, that it is the intensity of family relationships, and not trust in the family, that negatively affects social trust, and, second, that there is an interaction effect between trust in the family and state efficacy on social trust. While high trust in the family and low trust in strangers can go together, the relationship is spurious. It is low state efficacy that causes low trust in strangers and, to a lesser extent, high in-family trust. These arguments are tested with a sample of 44 countries from the 2005 wave of World Value Surveys.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Herreros, 2015. "Ties that bind: Family relationships and social trust," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(3), pages 334-357, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:27:y:2015:i:3:p:334-357
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463115593122
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463115593122
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463115593122?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James C. Cox & Elinor Ostrom, & James M. Walker & Antonio Jamie Castillo & Eric Coleman & Robert Holahan & Michael Schoon & Brian Steed, 2009. "Trust in Private and Common Property Experiments," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(4), pages 957-975, April.
    2. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    3. Jean Ensminger, 2000. "Experimental economics in the bush: why institutions matter," Chapters, in: Claude Ménard (ed.), Institutions, Contracts and Organizations, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Toshio Yamagishi & Satoshi Kanazawa & Rie Mashima & Shigeru Terai, 2005. "Separating Trust from Cooperation in a Dynamic Relationship," Rationality and Society, , vol. 17(3), pages 275-308, August.
    5. Ermisch, John & Gambetta, Diego, 2010. "Do strong family ties inhibit trust?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 365-376, September.
    6. Guido Tabellini, 2008. "The Scope of Cooperation: Values and Incentives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 905-950.
    7. Nahoko Hayashi & Elinor Ostrom & James Walker & Toshio Yamagishi, 1999. "Reciprocity, Trust, And The Sense Of Control," Rationality and Society, , vol. 11(1), pages 27-46, February.
    8. Brent Simpson & Kimmo Eriksson, 2009. "The Dynamics of Contracts and Generalized Trustworthiness," Rationality and Society, , vol. 21(1), pages 59-80, February.
    9. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brugiavini, Agar & Di Novi, Cinzia & Orso, Cristina Elisa, 2022. "Visiting parents in times of COVID-19: The impact of parent-adult child contacts on the psychological health of the elderly," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Algan, Yann & Cahuc, Pierre, 2014. "Trust, Growth, and Well-Being: New Evidence and Policy Implications," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 2, pages 49-120, Elsevier.
    2. Okada, Akira, 2020. "The cultural transmission of trust and trustworthiness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 53-69.
    3. Katharina Werner & Ahmed Skali, 2023. "Violent Conflict and Parochial Trust: Lab-in-the-Field and Survey Evidence," HiCN Working Papers 404, Households in Conflict Network.
    4. Anchorena, José & Anjos, Fernando, 2015. "Social ties and economic development," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 63-84.
    5. James C. Cox & Maroš Servátka & Radovan Vadovic, 2012. "Status Quo Effects in Fairness Games: Reciprocal Responses to Acts of Commission vs. Acts of Omission," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2012-03, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, revised Mar 2016.
    6. Gereke, Johanna & Schaub, Max & Baldassarri, Delia, 2018. "Ethnic diversity, poverty and social trust in Germany: Evidence from a behavioral measure of trust," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 13(7), pages 1-15.
    7. Alesina, Alberto & Giuliano, Paola, 2014. "Family Ties," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 4, pages 177-215, Elsevier.
    8. Anderlini, Luca & Terlizzese, Daniele, 2017. "Equilibrium trust," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 624-644.
    9. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-03974756 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Benjamin Ho, 2012. "Apologies as Signals: With Evidence from a Trust Game," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 141-158, January.
    11. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2011. "Family Ties And Political Participation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(5), pages 817-839, October.
    12. Kristian López Vargas & Alejandro Lugon, 2020. "Experimentos clásicos de economía. Evidencia de laboratorio de Perú," Documentos de Trabajo / Working Papers 2020-488, Departamento de Economía - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
    13. Binzel, Christine & Fehr, Dietmar, 2013. "Social distance and trust: Experimental evidence from a slum in Cairo," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 99-106.
    14. Akimowicz, Mikaël & Del Corso, Jean-Pierre & Gallai, Nicola & Képhaliacos, Charilaos, 2022. "The leader, the keeper, and the follower? A legitimacy perspective on the governance of varietal innovation systems for climate changes adaptation. The case of sunflower hybrids in France," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    15. James C. Cox & Daniel T. Hall, 2010. "Trust with Private and Common Property: Effects of Stronger Property Right Entitlements," Games, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-24, November.
    16. Christine Binzel & Dietmar Fehr, 2010. "Social Relationships and Trust," Working Papers 542, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 Jan 2010.
    17. Johanna Gereke & Max Schaub & Delia Baldassarri, 2018. "Ethnic diversity, poverty and social trust in Germany: Evidence from a behavioral measure of trust," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(7), pages 1-15, July.
    18. James C. Cox & Maroš Servátka & Radovan Vadovič, 2012. "Status Quo Effects in Fairness Games: Acts of Commission vs. Acts of Omission," Working Papers in Economics 12/01, University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance.
    19. Kolstad, Ivar & Wiig, Arne, 2012. "Testing The Pearl Hypothesis: Natural resources and trust," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 358-367.
    20. Werner, Katharina, 2016. "Whom do people trust after a violent conflict? Experimental evidence from Maluku, Indonesia," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-73-16, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    21. Meier, Stephan & Pierce, Lamar & Vaccaro, Antonino & La Cara, Barbara, 2016. "Trust and in-group favoritism in a culture of crime," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 78-92.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:27:y:2015:i:3:p:334-357. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.