Pasitikėjimas: nuo teorinių įžvalgų empirinės analizės link
Trust: From Theoretical Introspection to Empirical Analysis

Summary/Abstract: The goal of the article is to present notion of trust as a resource that enables and facilitates cooperation of people for mutual benefit. In order to reveal the role of trust in facilitating collective action of individuals and the mechanism of formation of trust the thorough analysis of reliance is given. The empirical part of the article is aimed at verifying theoretical insights about micro and macro-level factors that have influence on development of trust. For this purpose the data of European Value Survey of 1999 and data of representative survey of Lithuanian population using European Value Survey methodology conducted in 2005 by Public Opinion and Marker Research Company "Baltic Surveys" at the order of Civil Society Institute are utilized. In the first part of the article three questions are answered: What is trust? What functions does it perform? What factors determine the development of trust? In the most general sense, trust is defined as an opinion about the actions of other people. It is a cognitive phenomenon: trust is based on an assessment of the probability that the actions of others will advance, or at least not harm, our interests. In the words of Piotr Sztompka, "trust is a bet on the future contingent actions of others" (1996 39). The concept of trust is usually applied to the analysis of elementary, long-lasting, face-to-face human relations. However, in social life trust often takes different forms. People may trust not only people they personally know, but also institutions, organizations, individuals belonging to certain social categories. Thus, besides "personalized trust" (Stolle 1998), there could be distinguished "categorical trust" (Offe 1999), i.e. trust in some social categories of people, who are similar in their way of life, values or characteristics important in social life to the truster. In its turn, "personalized trust" and "categorical trust" are often referred as types of "particularistic trust" (Yamagishi&Yamagishi 1994; Uslaner 1999; Patterson 1999). On the other hand, in a society may prevail a more inclusive form of trust, when people trust not only those who are similar to them but also most of people in their society. For reference to this kultūra form of trust, the term of "generalized trust" is used (Yamagishi & Yamagishi 1994; Uslaner 1999). Finally, a distinctive from of trust is institutional trust; for example, trust in parliament, courts, educational institutions, private business companies, etc. It is crucial to stress that institutional trust is one of varieties of personal trust. Taking into consideration the variety of forms of trust, in the article an attempt is made to discuss the similarities and differences between developments of these forms of trust. Interpersonal trust is based on history of interaction between individuals. ..

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