In 1972, in his study on the importance of trust to organizational success, Professor Dale Zand at New York University reported that, “Apparently in low trust groups, interpersonal relationships interfere with and distort perceptions of the problem”. He further wrote that, “In contrast, in high trust groups there is less socially generated uncertainty and problems are solved more effectively.”

Built on Zand’s work, R. Wayne Boss, in a 1977 article in the Harvard Business Review, conducted a study which concludes that, “Under conditions of high trust, problem solving tends to be creative and productive. Under conditions of low trust, problem solving tends to be degenerative and ineffective.” And in Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement, Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara Schneider, researchers from the University of Chicago who examine the role of social relationships in schools and their impact on student achievement conclude that trust across a school community is a critical resource in the implementation of school improvement plans. Drawing on ten years of work in Chicago schools during a period of sweeping reform, Bryk and Schneider contend that schools with a high degree of “relational trust” are far more likely to make the kinds of changes that help raise student achievement than those where relations are poor. Meanwhile, back in 1974, Taylor McConnell, in his book Group Leadership for Self Realization, wrote that “The most productive people are the most trusting people.”

What is trust? According to the Webster Dictionary, trust is the “firm belief in the honesty and reliability of another.” In other words, trust is a personal attribute. Diego Gambetta offers an alternative definition. According to him, “Trusting a person means believing that when offered the chance, he/she is not likely to behave in a way that damages us.”  Trust, in this definition, is situational and/or relational, something that develops between two or more actors in a particular context or relationship.

In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in trust and the various factors promoting it. Scholars, such as Robert Putnam, Francis Fukuyama and others, argue that trust constitutes an important source for social capital within social systems. Social capital is an instantiated informal norm that promotes cooperation between two or more individuals.  It refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society’s social interactions. Evidence increasingly shows that social cohesion is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable. Fukuyama in Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity argues that one of the most important manifestations of trust as a form of social capital is the spontaneous sociability such trust brings about. In behavioral terms, spontaneous sociability refers to the myriad forms of cooperative, altruistic, and extra-role behavior in which members of a social community engage, that enhance collective well-being and further the attainment of collective goals.

Developed initially by James S. Coleman, the concept of social capital has become one of the main interests in explaining how society develop both in term of economic and democracy. Putnam in Bowling Alone succinctly explains the idea:

“Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called ‘civic virtue.’ The difference is that ‘social capital’ calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a sense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital.”

The next section describes the critical role of trust in promoting democracy, economic prosperity and unity—through the realization of peaceful intraethnic communities. This critical role can be best summarized by McConnel, “Trust is one of the most essential qualities of human relationships. Without it, all human interaction, all commerce, all society would disappear.”

 

 

---