Nonsocial Transient Behavior: Social Disengagement on the Greyhound Bus

Based on two years of observations and engaging in informal conversations with passengers on Greyhound Line buses, this article describes the long‐distance bus journey and the ways in which people actively disengage from others over the course of the ride. Using the Greyhound buses and stations as a microcosm of other such public spaces, I examine its unspoken rules and behavior. I paint a picture of the buses and stations, the patrons, the employees, and the transactions that take place between them. Using ideas from Goffman's civil inattention theory, Lofland's thoughts on strangers, and symbolic interactionism, I explain what I call “nonsocial transient behavior” and “nonsocial transient space.” The reasons nonsocial transient behavior emerges and thus encourages disengagement are identified as follows: uncertainty about strangers, lack of privacy or absence of a personal space, and exhaustion.     

Why reputation is not always beneficial: Tolerance and opportunism in business networks

Many researchers in economics as well as sociology have stressed the important role of business networks for cooperation, trust, and performance. This claim is based on solid theoretical arguments as well as empirical findings. However, neither theory nor the selective empirical results support the view that networks are always beneficial for economic transactions. This paper begins with an observation that for the purchase of IT products, network embeddedness leads to even more problems for the customer. In order to explain this effect, possible reasons for this phenomenon are discussed using theory as well as empirics. The most promising explanation for this special case is the effect of uncertainty and incomplete information ex post. In order to reduce this uncertainty, the buyer forms beliefs on the basis of the opinions existing in a shared network or group. However, if the network members have the same problem of uncertainty, suppliers have an incentive to reduce their performance because such behavior will not be detected and sanctioned. An analysis of the customer's tolerance to a supplier's behavior in business transactions yields support for this argument. Even if problems in a transaction are kept constant, customers give suppliers more reputational credit if they share a common network.     

RISK, TRANSACTIONS CHARGES, AND THE MARKET FOR FOREIGN EXCHANGE SERVICES

This paper suggests that transactions charges in foreign exchange markets, rather than being solely brokerage fees, represent exchange rate uncertainty in periods of great fluctuations by including remuneration for the assumption of risk by foreign exchange dealers. Since most of the cost of exchange rate uncertainty may be largely endogenously included in the foreign exchange markets, attempts to examine the efficient market hypothesis in these markets should most appropriately include specific consideration of transactions costs. There appears to be empirical support for the premise that transactions charges are positively related to exchange rate risk, and, as well, inclusion of contemporaneous bid-ask spreads into the interest parity schedule leaves few unexplained profits from dollar-pound covered interest arbitrage during the 1970's and underscores the notion of classifying periods by degree of turbulence in analyzing covered interest arbitrage.     

Standardisation—the end of professional discretion?†

This article analyses and discusses standardisation in human service organisations and its implications for professionals and for professionalism in social work. The theoretical framework derives from neo-institutional theory and theories regarding professionalism. By highlighting the role of professionals within a field influenced by organisational demands and market endeavour, this article contributes to the understanding of increased standardisation as a way to reduce uncertainty and enhance legitimacy for human service organisations, but at the expense of traditional professional discretion. This development has been interpreted as de-professionalisation and as an adjustment to organisational demands. It could also be seen as a professional strategy to strengthen professional trust and provide a sense of certainty for professionals. It can also lead to professional uncertainty about how to handle the discretion in the light of standardised tools. This development might, depending on the organisational context and the individual professional's choices, result in a manual-mental specialised professionalism as well as a strictly mechanical form of work. Standardisation thus puts high demands on professionals and how they use the professional discretion, since professionalism requires professionals capable of handling a mix of logics without totally yielding discretionary power and making professional judgement.     

The impact of negotiated exchange on trust and trustworthiness

Negotiated exchanges and trust problems can be regarded as two different forms of exchange, the former representing exchanges with negotiation and binding contracts, the latter representing asymmetric transactions in which one actor has the opportunity to deceive the other. Both forms of exchange have been extensively studied, but the two respective research traditions exhibit very little overlap. In this paper, we investigate the effects of negotiated exchanges in different network structures on the development of mutual trust. We derive hypotheses from various theories and test them by means of an experiment in which subjects first undertake a series of negotiated exchanges under different power conditions, and then face a trust problem with one of the actors that have been involved in the previous exchanges. The trust problem is operationalized by means of the Investment Game which allows us to look separately at trust and trustworthiness. Our results demonstrate that negotiated exchanges increase mutual trust, but not trustworthiness.     

When in Rome,Do as the Romans Do: The Acculturation of Generalized Trust among Immigrants in Western Europe

The purpose of the article is to examine whether an acculturation of trust takes place among non-western immigrants upon migrating to Western Europe and whether inclusionary integration policies have an effect on this process. Building on the second and third wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) we show that an acculturation of trust does take place, but that integration policy does not affect this process. In spite of some variation across destination countries, we also find that second generation immigrants tend to adapt more to the level of trust of natives in the destination country than first generation immigrants do. This indicates that the acculturation of trust is strengthened with the second generation in the country. The results hold up when controlling for confounding variables including the trust in the country of origin of immigrants.     

Trust and Society: Suggestions for Further Development of Niklas Luhmann's Theory of Trust

This paper addresses an apparent gap in the work of Niklas Luhmann. While the issue of trust continues to receive widespread attention in the social sciences, Luhmann's interest in this topic declined following the development of his systems theory. It is argued that this decline does not reflect any diminished relevance of trust for systems theory, but rather that the architectural remodeling of theory cannot easily be applied to the issue of trust. Here, the issue of trust is reconceptualized as a connection medium. This entails a reconstruction of Luhmann's early theory of trust, especially with regard to function and social positioning. In this context, trust can in turn be linked to the concept of medium in Luhmann's late work. As a connection medium, trust mediates between the different levels of sociality—interaction, organization, and society. These theoretical considerations are employed to develop a more applied framework for empirical research, with a brief case study from southern Italy. From this perspective, the idea of trust as society's glue is seen to be overly simplistic. The common ethical understanding that more trust leads to a better society is also questioned on the grounds that social cooperation can also lead to social sclerosis. Finally, risk and trust are shown to accommodate the formation of different cultures of trust. The paper shows how Luhmann's updated version of trust can inspire current research and enhance our understanding of how trust operates in contemporary society.     

Groups or Gatherings? Sources of Political Engagement in 19th Century American Cities

There is broad agreement that citizen participation is critical for successful democracy. Recently, scholars have linked such political participation with the notion of social capital—community-level resources, such as trust, norms, and networks, that foster collective action. Much uncertainty remains regarding the sources of social capital, however. Here we examine two different features of community life that are believed to nurture social capital, and political participation in turn: public venues where relative strangers can meet anonymously, socialize, and share information and opinions (i.e., venues for informal interaction); and venues for organized exchange between familiars, such as voluntary organizations and social clubs. Using quantitative data from America's largest cities at the end of the 19th century, we examine the relationship between both supposed sources of social capital and respective rates of voter participation. We find little support for the role of informal interaction in fostering an active and engaged citizenry. We do, however, find evidence that citizen participation was related to some types of associationalism (or organized exchange). In particular, associations that fostered high levels of mutual interdependence among members seemed the most strongly linked to higher levels of political participation.     

EXCHANGE RATE RISK and THE BID-ASK SPREAD: A SEVEN COUNTRY COMPARISON

This paper studies the determination of exchange market transaction costs. Using a large data set including seven currencies, it provides empirical support for the theoretical prediction of a positive relationship between the level of uncertainty regarding future prices and current transaction costs. In contrast to most previous work, it considers explicitly the problem of omitted transactions volume, showing that while estimators are less efficient and potentially inconsistent in the absence of the unavailable variable, the direction of potential coefficient bias is such that hypothesis tests regarding the importance of uncertainty are rendered more conservative.     

Trust and uncertainty: a critical re-assessment

Under uncertainty, we never know for sure the precise boundaries of our warranted knowledge to be able to completely trust our judgments within its range. This poses a problem of substantiating our trusting attitudes in the absence of credible affirmative evidence. The functionalist understanding of trust as a device pruning down uncertainty and complexity of the outer world does not seem to be an adequate response, since it can bring about inferior outcomes, given the incompleteness of the agents’ knowledge. The challenge of human agency further complicates the issue of trust due to emerging uncertainty about the partners’ response to the initial act of trusting. Biases and illusions in surmising the others’ trustworthiness add to uncertainty and unpredictability of placing trust and show the danger of drawing inferences about the trustees’ motivation and reliability on purely subjective grounds.     

When trustors compete for the favour of a trustee – A laboratory experiment

We experimentally compare standard two-player trust games to three-player trust games, where two trustors compete for one trustee. We argue that a competitive environment could affect how the trustors’ behaviour is perceived by the trustee. If two trustors compete for the favour of a trustee, the trustee might find it difficult to interpret the trustors’ investments as kind since they could as well be the outcome of a competitive race; this could negatively affect the trustee’s returned amount. We allow for heterogeneous effects of competition for strangers and artificially induced partners. The results of our one-shot trust games show that introducing competition among trustors reduces return ratios of the trustee. We do not find any evidence for statistically different effects of competition for partners and strangers.     

Fairness as a constraint on reciprocity: Playing simultaneously as dictator and trustee

The dictator and trust games are two common games used to identify the existence of social preferences. However, in many social interactions, individuals face the environments in both games simultaneously: for example we are often engaged in charitable donations to strangers, as well as reciprocal exchange with family members and colleagues. As giving in one game could be prioritised over giving in the other, it is important to have participants play both as a dictator in the dictator game and as a trustee in a trust game simultaneously. The results indicate that when the recipient in the dictator game is significantly poorer relative to the dictator, the dictator tends to return an amount to the trustor such that the trustor neither makes a loss nor profit from trusting. This suggests that the presence of a sufficiently strong incentive to make transfers as a dictator may completely crowd-out any monetary returns to trust.     

Die Rolle von Vertrag, Macht und Sozialer Einbettung für wirtschaftliche Transaktionen

This paper focuses on the conditions that enhance punctual payments of clients in economic transactions. Within such exchange relations the actors face a problem of trust: the contractor delivers goods or services ex ante and has to trust the client that he will pay punctually. Three possible solutions are discussed: institutional mechanisms like enforceable contracts, market mechanisms, and mechanisms based on the social embeddedness of the transaction. It can be shown, that the trust problem concerning proper payment behavior cannot be solved by the market or bilateral contracts. Due to this fact, the embeddedness of economic transactions in social networks and long-term relationships becomes an important mechanism to reduce problems of trust between client and contractor. Based on a general theoretical framework, hypotheses are tested using regional restricted data of handicraft enterprises. It can be shown, that due to unbalanced power relations and insufficient institutional regulations the actors are not able to solve the problem of trust. Although the social embeddedness fosters cooperative behavior, opportunism by the client cannot be avoided completely.     

Believe it when you see it: Dyadic embeddedness and reputation effects on trust in cryptomarkets for illegal drugs

Large-scale online marketplace data have been repeatedly used to test sociological theories on trust between strangers. Most studies focus on sellers’ aggregate reputation scores, rather than on buyers’ individual decisions to trust. Theoretical predictions on how repeated exchanges affect trust within dyads and how buyers weigh individual experience against reputation feedback from other actors have not been tested directly in detail. What do buyers do when they are warned not to trust someone they have trusted many times before? We analyze reputation effects on trust at the dyadic and network levels using data from an illegal online drug marketplace. We find that buyers’ trust decisions are primarily explained by dyadic embeddedness - cooperative sellers get awarded by repeated exchanges. Although buyers take third-party information into account, this effect is weaker and more important for first-time buyers. Buyers tend to choose market exit instead of retaliation against sellers after negative experiences.     

A test of equilibrium theory: Effects of topic intimacy and proximity on verbal and nonverbal behavior in pairs of friends and strangers

This experiment examined verbal and nonverbal behavior by pairs of female friends and strangers as they discussed either intimate or nonintimate topics at face-to-face distances of approximately 2.5 or 4.5 feet. On the basis of equilibrium theory and Altman and Taylor's (1973) theory about interpersonal exchange, strangers were expected to react to intimate topics or close proximity or both with discomfort and decreased affiliative behavior (facial regard, gesturing, speech). Friends were expected to show increased affiliative behavior. Results indicated that both strangers and friends showed signs of discomfort and low levels of affiliative behavior while discussing intimate topics, i.e.compensation. Discomfort with intimate topics and compensation decreased over time, indicatingadaptation. This finding suggests that compensation for intimate topics may occur only during the initial phases of an encounter.     

A Comparative Study of Arm‐Restraint Methodology: Differential Effects of Mother and Stranger Restrainers on Infants' Distress Reactivity at 6 and 9 Months of Age

This study examined both differential patterns and the stability of infants' (N = 70) distress reactivity across mother and stranger arm‐restraint conditions when infants were 6 and 9 months of age. Reactivity measures included observational variables for the rise, intensity, and duration of infant distress as well as motor activities associated with escape behaviors. Correlation analyses revealed that infant behaviors during arm restraint were modestly stable across conditions and over time; however, mean comparisons also showed that infants' distress responses appear to be sensitive to protocol parameters (whether restrainer is mother or stranger). At 6 months of age, infants cried more during maternal restraint than with strangers and exhibited escape behaviors more frequently with mothers. Findings further indicate that infants' distress reactivity undergoes developmental alterations from 6 to 9 months of age, with infants crying more quickly, reaching peak intensity of distress faster, and displaying more distress at 9 months compared to 6 months. These changes in infants' reactivity were particularly accentuated during maternal compared to stranger restraint conditions at 9 months of age.     

DEMAND FOR DIFFERENTIATED DURABLE PRODUCTS: THE CASE OF THE U.S. COMPUTER PRINTER MARKET

This paper develops an estimation technique for analyzing the impact of technological change on the dynamics of consumer demand in a differentiated durable products industry. The paper presents a dynamic model of consumer demand for differentiated durable products that explicitly accounts for consumers' expectations of future product quality and consumers' outflow from the market that arises endogenously from their purchase decisions. The timing of consumers' purchases is formalized as an optimal stopping problem. A solution to that problem defines the hazard rate of product adoptions, while the nested discrete choice model determines the alternative‐specific purchase probabilities. Integrating individual decisions over the population distribution generates rich dynamics of aggregate and product‐level sales. The empirical part of the paper applies the model to data on the U.S. computer printer market for 1998–1999. The estimates support the hypothesis of consumers' forward‐looking behavior, allowing for better demand forecasts and improved measures of welfare gains from introducing new products. (JEL L11, C35, D91)     

Trust and recognition: a comparative study of client attitudes and workers' experiences in the welfare services

Since professional conduct is important in the lives of many people, trust and recognition between professionals and their clients are critical. Social professionals administer public resources on behalf of the welfare state, and their approaches and methods of intervention are mostly founded in current welfare policy. Despite this mandate, social professionals receive little acknowledgement and recognition. This article investigates the level of public trust in the Norwegian social services compared to the national insurance agencies, and to what extent the providers of these welfare services experience recognition and public approval. A central question is whether these aspects of external appreciation influence the professionals' motivation and feelings of accomplishment. Findings indicate that the social services receive less public support than the social insurance agencies, owing to the discretionary services provided and the stigma related to social assistance. The variation in institutional trust is reflected by the differences in workers' subjective experiences. That result notwithstanding, the service providers reveal a split view of themselves: while they experience themselves positively with respect to involvement and pride in their work, they also see themselves through the deprecating eyes of the public.     

Social Trust and E-Commerce: Experimental Evidence for the Effects of Social Trust on Individuals' Economic Behavior

In this study, an experimental design embedded in a nationalsurvey is used to examine the impact of social trust on participationin e-commerce. To what extent does generalized trust in peopleinfluence economic behavior, particularly in newly establishedrealms such as the Internet? Although some previous work hasposited a role for social trust in encouraging both e-commerceand economic development more generally, evidence has been basedon cross-sectional associations and, primarily, at the aggregatelevel of entire countries. While these relationships have beensuggestive, studies have yet to confirm a causal role for socialtrust in influencing e-commerce. Would increasing levels ofsocial trust actually encourage greater e-commerce participation?This study combines the representativeness of a national surveywith the internal validity of an experimental design to answerthis question.