Trustworthiness as social capital produces benefits the trusted actor does not capture.
Evidence
Similar statements can be made with respect to trustworthiness as social capital. An actor choosing to keep trust or not (or choosing whether to devote resources to an attempt to keep trust) is doing so on the basis of costs and benefits he himself will experience. That his trustworthiness will facilitate others’ actions or that his lack of trustworthiness will inhibit others’ actions does not enter into his decision. A similar but more qualified statement can be made for information as a form of social capital. An individual who serves as a source of information for another because he is well informed ordinarily acquires that information for his own benefit, not for the others who make use of him. — Coleman, SocialCapitalCreation-1988, 219
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: The third-party mechanism in my analysis depends on witnesses capturing benefits of cooperation; this passage directly explains why self-interested actors defect from that mechanism.
- XREF: connects to: Social capital’s benefits mostly accrue to others, not its creator.
Related
- The network of exchangers, not trust itself, is the enabling social capital. (similarity 0.82)
- Social relations maintained for other purposes serve as low-cost channels for acquiring scarce information. (similarity 0.79)
- Trust emerges as a result of cooperation rather than an element of social capital. (similarity 0.79)
- Trust functions as social capital enabling collective purposes. (similarity 0.79)
- Trust functions as capital that commits its user to continued trustworthy conduct (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Social capital’s benefits mostly accrue to others, not its creator.
#corroborates(0.90)