Intergenerational Transmission of Trust and Reciprocity: Implications for Well Being

Abstract

Trust plays a key role in successful goal pursuits and sustaining relationships in everyday life. Contrarily decline of trust creates barriers in communication and interferes with the smooth functioning in interpersonal settings. With this in view, the present study attempts to empirically examine the mediating role of trust in social interaction and social well being. As trust is often construed to be an outcome of early socialization experiences, the study explores the dynamics of transmission of trusting attitudes and reciprocal inclinations from parents to children. To this end, dyads of parents and children (n=50) were assessed on measures of trust, reciprocity, well being, flourishing, self construal and self inclusiveness. The data were analyzed to tap the patterns of the intergenerational transmission process. The study proposes a two pronged conceptualisation of trust involving self trust and social trust and argues that the relationship between the two depends on people’s self construal. The implications for understanding trust and positive and negative reciprocity in the light of well being and flourishing are discussed.

Keywords: Trust, Reciprocity, Well Being, Flourishing, Self Construal, Intergenerational Transmission