Surveillance and trust1

Abstract

The social response of one individual to another is obviously determined, in part, by his perceptions and evaluations of that other A particularly important aspect of these perceptions is the nature of inferences made by the perceiver about the locus of phenomenal causality for the various motives and behaviors of the other What Heider (2) has termed the "causal unit," which the perceiver constructs from knowledge of an event and its perceived agent, may be a determinant of his future perception of the agent and/or a fimction of his previous perception of him When we attribute, correctly or incorrectly, some "good" deed to a person, this may contnbute to our perception of the person himself as "good " If we have prior information which has led to the perception that he is not a good person, the causal unit we construct may be quite different we may suspect some ulterior motive, suppose that he was forced to perform the good act, or we may not construct the unit at all (deny that he performed the act) This process of causal attribution usually involves some inference about the motivation of the other person (perhaps as to its locus, and perhaps about its nature), and our interaction with or evaluation of the other person may vary in predictable ways along with the type of "causality" attnbuted Both Heider and Simmel (8) and Michotte (4) have demonstrated how the perceiving subject imputes causality to the movements and collisions of geometncal objects m the visual field, and the former writers clearly indicated how the attribution of causality for such mechanical events influences the interpretations of the events themselves Studtes by Thibaut, Coules, and Robinson (described m S) and Thibaut and Riecken (8), although not explicitly concemed with the perception of social

How Monitoring Influences Trust: A Tale of Two Faces

“…These findings are inconsistent with Strickland (1958)'s prediction, but support our weak trust inference hypothesis.…”

“…In our investigation, Strickland's (1958) findings suggest that if trustors attribute the compliant behavior they observe to the monitoring system, they should be skeptical of the trustee's trustworthiness. As a result, when the trustor cannot monitor the trustee, the trustor should not trust and would not pass money.…”

“…Strickland (1958) found that frequent monitoring caused observers to become more likely to make external attributions for the compliant behavior they observed. That is, rather than making a personal attribution for compliant behavior under monitoring, observers may attribute compliant behavior to the monitoring system.…”

“…That is, rather than making a personal attribution for compliant behavior under monitoring, observers may attribute compliant behavior to the monitoring system. Strickland (1958) found that monitoring eroded trust and that those in a position to monitor others demanded even more frequent monitoring. In related work, Kruglanski (1970) found that individuals were far more likely to make personal attributions for trustworthy behavior when they could rule-out external motivations.…”

Why teachers trust school leaders

“…Most researchers identified no more than five antecedents for trust. Strickland (1958) listed only one, benevolence, thus supporting Deutsch's work (1957) that identified the trustee's apparent benevolent intent as being key as the motivational attribute identified by the trustor in order for the trustor to trust. Strickland went on, however, to state "There may be a wider variety of attributed internal causality" (1958, p. 212).…”