Trust limits help explain cliques, familism, and ethnic exclusion.
Evidence
Consider the limits on how many individuals one can trust. Even before getting to trust, someone who already has several friends may not think the possible benefits of investing in developing a friendship with yet another person is worth the risk. This problem may explain at least part of the phenomenon of clique and friendship-group formation. It might also be part of the explanation of familism in contexts in which families are relatively large, that is, large enough to exhaust a substantial part of the resources any member might have for investing in rich relationships. It may also be part of the explanation of ethnic exclusion. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 789
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- Cognitive limits on trusting many people explain clique formation and exclusion (similarity 0.94)
- In-group-trust patterns prove trust is relational, not based on the trusted’s traits. (similarity 0.79)
- Trust historically extended far beyond the narrow modern friend circle (similarity 0.79)
- In low-trust societies commerce stays confined within family and friend circles. (similarity 0.78)
- Poverty-driven trust in family can produce active distrust of all outsiders. (similarity 0.78)