The Rational Warmth

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the group of direct selling just like a stream of undercurrents in China flowing here and there. It's not known by people, at the same time, they are afraid of it so to resist it. As a kind of recessive colony, the group of direct selling is full of mystique. Though a lot of scholars in our country have studied it already, in these researches, we could not find the sociology which is the one of very important social science. In this paper, the author choose X group of direct selling of the Amway Company for research. Through observing correctly the X group of direct selling, the author describes its daily activities. The author tries to explain the members of group how to consume, product the trust and the group how to control the free ride by analyzing the group of direct selling activities. And the author explains what made the rational people who pursue the maximization of the interests to unite.The paper is composed of five different parts. The first part is introduction. In this part, the author explains the background and the cause of the research and how to confirm the research object. Meanwhile the author put forward the question which is why there is the trust in X group and how to get and maintain the group unity. In the second part, the author reviews the researches of the trust which have been done and exposits the concept of the trust what being used in the paper. On the other hand, the author points the theory of group solidarity and the research approaches what mainly includes the qualitative research in the paper. The third part is the overview of X group of direct selling. The author describes it from four respects. From the description, the author represents the time and the place of X group of direct selling's activities and the structure of the members and the contents of the group's activities. In the fourth part, the author explains what the members of X group can obtain from the group at first. Then the author analyzes that the members of X group how to consume the trust and how to product the trust as the joint goods. At last, the author analyzes that X group of direct selling how to control the course of the trust production in order to avoid the free ride. The fifth part is the discussion and summary. In this part the author comprehensives the experience material and the theory to demonstrate the acts what the members of X group have done are the result of their rational choice as rational people. Just because of it, X group get the power to maintain the group unity.