An Investigation And An Experimental Research Of The Related Factors Of Interpersonal Trust Of The College Students

Trust is a state of mind, the individuals hold expectation to the intentions and actions of the others, and then take appropriate action according to the expectation. Researchers had two kinds of orientations to study the problem of trust:taking trust as psychological traits, surveying the characteristics of the interpersonal trust and the relationship between trust and other psychological traits through questionnaires; or taking trust as the behavior, including trust others and being trustworthy, which is decided by situation stimulates. The research combined two orientations to explore the related factors of interpersonal trust.Study 1 used Revised Philosophies Human Scale, Big Five Scale, and Interpersonal Reaction Index Scale to investigate 384 college students of Shandong Province. We examined the characters of interpersonal trust,and the relationship between the interpersonal trust and personality, empathy, and chose subjects for next step. Study 2 was an experimental research, which was participated by 88 subjects chosen in Study 1. It explored how the level of interpersonal trust and situation factors such as initial endowment and deciding order affect the interpersonal trust behavior. Come to the conclusions:1. No significant difference was found on both the international trust and international trust level of college students in gender. The freshmen trust more than the sophomores, juniors and seniors. The level of interpersonal trust of Liberal arts students was significantly higher than the engineers.2. Remarkable positive correlation was found between interpersonal trust and emotional stability, "Introverted or extroverted" factor, sense of responsibility, empathy, perspective-taking, empathy concern. And "Introverted or extroverted" factor, empathy concern can significantly predicted the interpersonal trust. Remarkable positive correlation was also found between the cynicism and emotional stability, compatibility, empathy, personal distress, responsibility, also remarkable difference was found between trustworthiness and "introverted or extroverted" factor, sense of responsibility perspective taking, empathy concern. Emotional stability and compatibility significantly predicted cynicism. "Introverted or extroverted" factor significantly predicted trustworthiness.3. The level of interpersonal trust significantly influenced the trust behavior. Person with high level showed higher trust behavior.4. The interaction of initial endowments and deciding order was significant on interpersonal trust behavior. When the initial endowment was 10, the first decision makers'trust behavior was significantly higher than the second ones. When the initial endowment was 0, the first decision makers' trust behavior is significantly lower than the second ones. The first decision makers showed more trust behavior when initial endowment was 10. While the second decision makers showed more trust behavior when initial endowment was 10.