Schilke Oliver, Reimann Martin, Cook Karen S
Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0108;
Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Oct 20;112(42):12950-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1517057112. Epub 2015 Oct 5.
How does lacking vs. possessing power in a social exchange affect people's trust in their exchange partner? An answer to this question has broad implications for a number of exchange settings in which dependence plays an important role. Here, we report on a series of experiments in which we manipulated participants' power position in terms of structural dependence and observed their trust perceptions and behaviors. Over a variety of different experimental paradigms and measures, we find that more powerful actors place less trust in others than less powerful actors do. Our results contradict predictions by rational actor models, which assume that low-power individuals are able to anticipate that a more powerful exchange partner will place little value on the relationship with them, thus tends to behave opportunistically, and consequently cannot be trusted. Conversely, our results support predictions by motivated cognition theory, which posits that low-power individuals want their exchange partner to be trustworthy and then act according to that desire. Mediation analyses show that, consistent with the motivated cognition account, having low power increases individuals' hope and, in turn, their perceptions of their exchange partners' benevolence, which ultimately leads them to trust.
在社会交换中缺乏权力与拥有权力如何影响人们对交换伙伴的信任？这个问题的答案对许多依赖起着重要作用的交换情境具有广泛的影响。在此，我们报告了一系列实验，在这些实验中，我们根据结构依赖性操纵了参与者的权力地位，并观察了他们的信任感知和行为。通过各种不同的实验范式和测量方法，我们发现权力较大的参与者比权力较小的参与者对他人的信任更少。我们的结果与理性行为者模型的预测相矛盾，理性行为者模型假设低权力个体能够预期权力更大的交换伙伴对与他们的关系重视程度较低，因此往往会采取机会主义行为，因而不可信任。相反，我们的结果支持动机认知理论的预测，该理论认为低权力个体希望他们的交换伙伴值得信赖，然后据此采取行动。中介分析表明，与动机认知解释一致，权力较低会增加个体的希望，进而增加他们对交换伙伴善意的感知，最终导致他们产生信任。
