신뢰의 개인차에 영향을 미치는 요인에 대한 연구 = Individual Differences in Trust Formation and Change: Assessing the Effects of Generalized Expectancy, Situational Expectancy, and Need for Cognitive Closure

국문 초록 (Abstract)

조직 내 구성원 간의 신뢰는 모든 조직의 성패에 중요한 역할을 한다. 본 연구는 조직 관리자의 조직 내 신뢰 제고 노력을 돕기 위하여 개인의 어떠한 성격적 요인이 신뢰의 형성 및 변화정도의 차이를 가져오는지를 조사하였다. 일반화된 기대이론을 바탕으로 과거의 신뢰경험의 결과가 어떻게 현재의 동료에게 투영되는지를 조사하였으며, 인지적 종결이론을 바탕으로 개인의 인지적 종결욕구가 신뢰에 어떤 영향을 미치는지를 조사하였다. 본 연구는 대전과 서울에 위치한 두 대학교의 학부과정 수업 중 협동하는 학부과정 수강생들 간 신뢰의 형성 및 변화정도에 대한 종단연구로 이루어졌다. 자료 분석결과, 과거의 긍정/부정적 경험은 동일한 상황에서만 현재의 동료에게 투영되는 것으로 나타났으며, 인지적 종결욕구가 강한 사람들은 처음에 쉽게 신뢰하는 경향을 보이며 관계초기에 상대의 부정적 의도를 경험함으로서 감소되는 신뢰의 정도 역시 낮은 것으로 나타났다. 반면, 상황적 기대가 긍정적이었던 사람은 관계 초기의 경험한 상대의 무능력이 상대적으로 더 큰 신뢰의 감소를 가져오는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구의 결과를 바탕으로 조직 관리자가 다양한 성격의 구성원과의 관계에서 신뢰를 증진, 유지, 및 관리하기 위하여 어떤 점을 주의해야 하는지를 제안하였다.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Trust has been a popular topic among organizational scholars; hailed as an important facilitator of virtually all types of cooperative interaction. Researchers have found that trust influences diverse organizational outcomes such as organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intention, and job performance. Given the significance of trust for managing today’s organizations, knowledge of the antecedents to the emergence of trust is essential for managers to be effective. In an effort to help managers promote trust within their organizations, scholars have explored the antecedents to building robust trust between individuals. These scholars suggest that trust is determined by the confluence of three factors representing different components of a dyadic relationship: attributes of the perceiver (trustor), the target (trustee), and the relationship context.
Upon reviewing the literature, the authors found that the effects of a trustor’s traits have been much less often investigated than the effects of trustee’s traits (i.e., trustworthiness) as well as the context in which they interact with each other. Moreover, few studies have examined how the effects of trustor attributes differ depending on the situation. This is because scholars have conceptualized the propensity to trust as a cross-situational consistency in making trusting choices. The authors qualified their research by suggesting that the cross-situational consistency presumption is somewhat invalid, and in addition, irrelevant for organizational studies. However, organizational scholars accepted this concept nonetheless, which eventually precluded them from further investigating the effects of various personality traits on interpersonal trust in diverse situations.
In this study, we identified three different trustor factors – generalized expectancy, situational expectancy, and the need for cognitive closure – and tested the effects of these factors on interpersonal trust in a number of different situations. In other words, we compared the results between situations where the trustors and trustees were strangers versus friends, and further between situations of lack of capability versus lack of intention in the fulfillment of the trustor’s expectation on the part of the trustee.
We conducted a survey of 150 Korean college students collaborating on a class project. Students were randomly assigned to groups, and asked to evaluate their relationships with each of their teammates, which created a dataset of 426 dyadic relationships (2.8 teammates per student on average). Two surveys were conducted during a semester. The first survey was done at the beginning of the semester, right after students are assigned to groups. At the first round, they were asked to provide information about themselves regarding generalized expectancy, situational expectancy, the need for cognitive closure, as well as to evaluate the level of trust they have toward each of the teammates. In addition, they also stated whether their teammates are strangers or friends. The second survey was conducted at the end of the semester, right after they finished the final group presentation. At the second round, they were asked to provide whether they experienced positive and negative events during the collaboration in relationships with each of their teammates, and also to evaluate once again the level of trust toward each of the teammates.
We found that situational expectancy significantly influenced initial trust (the first survey), while generalized expectancy did not. In other words, the quality of past experiences influences initial trust toward current teammates only in similar situations (i.e., a significant effect of situational expectancy). We also found that individuals with a strong need for cognitive closure tend to have higher initial trust toward strangers.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• <초 록>
• Ⅰ. 연구문제
• Ⅱ. 이론적 배경
• Ⅲ. 연구방법
• Ⅳ. 분석 결과
• Ⅴ. 결 론
• 참고문헌
• ABSTRACT