关键词: 信任, 代际传递, 投资博弈, 青少年

Abstract: Previous studies on intergenerational transmission found that parents could transmit some of their characteristics, values and behaviors to their children. Some researchers concluded the level of parent' s trust correlated to that of their child, that is, there exists intergenerational transmission of interpersonal trust. Studies from the United States of America, Canada and Germany provided evidences. By now, no empirical research has been done in China to examine the intergenerational transmission of trust. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how parents' trust predict their child's trust. Research in this aspect may shed light on the family origins of people's interpersonal trust.Some research about intergenerational transmission of trust found that father and mother played different roles in development of child's trust. Some studies showed that father's level of trust strongly impacted on that of son, but had little influenced on daughter; whereas trust level of mother affected both son and daughter slightly. A study from Canada indicated it was mother's level of trust, not father's that could predict trust level of their next generation. Recently, German researchers suggestted both father's and mother's trust impacted their offspring's trust. Althought it was not clear that who being more important for offspring's development of trust, some investigations pointed out parental investment to their offspring influenced the intergenerational transmission of trust: Parents who invest more in the upbringing of their children are more similar to them with respect to trust attitudes; thus transmit their own attitudes more strongly. A study of evolutionay psychology found that father invested in son more than daughter, while mother's investment in son and daughter were same. So it can be concluded that the trust level of boy's father would predict offspring's trust level more strongly than that of girl's father; and both boy's and girl's mother influence her offspring's trust level indifferently. Based on a Chinese sample of 198 parents-adolescent pairs, the present study aimed to examine whether parents' trust could be transmitted to their offspring or not. The study collected pariticipants' responses to trust game by questionnare to measure their interpersonal trust. Each participant including adolescent and adult was asked to decide how much money would he or she like to send a stranger and guess how much would the stranger return to him or her after receiving pariticipant's money. The amount of money pariticipants sending and estimating to be returned was used to measure the level of trust. The results showed that (1) the rate of amount of money sending from adolescents and their fathers and mothers were 57.3%, 56.7% and 54.8%, respectively; and fathers' trust levels were higher than mothers'; and male adolescents were more trusting than female. (2) Gender of the offspring impacted on the strength of intergenerational transmission. Parents' trust could not predict their daughter's trust; whereas they did for sons. The transmission patterns of father and mother were different: relationship of father's and son's trust level fit a linear model but data of mother's and son's trust fit a negative quadratic model. The study has potentially important implications for understanding the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of trust, and it is shed light on the basic question of where trust comes from.

Key words: trust, intergenerational transmission, investment game, adolescent