Construct an Indigenous Social Trust theory: Social Trust Implications during an Environment Decision-making Process
Date Issued
2007
Date
2007
Author(s)
Wang, Yi-Wen
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
The main purpose of this dissertation is to construct a social trust theory capable of interpreting adequately various phenomena related social trusts in Taiwanese society. At first, a critical review of the literature on trust indicated that it is very difficult to use theories of trust developed by Western scholars to explain some prevailing phenomena related to trust in indigenous society. Because interpersonal trust is generally supported by the value system and social norms constituting the meaning of life in a given culture, it is necessary to investigate the process of trust within a particular cultural context. A social trust theory based on Confucian relationalism is proposed to analyze the domains and features of five prototypes of trust in Taiwanese culture. Two of the prototypes concern trust within the network of one's intimate society, namely, kinship trust and emergent trust constituted on the grounds of shared identity. The other three concern trust of social targets outside one's intimate society, including customary trust derived from the cultural practices that have long been adopted as customs, professional trust that is created by the professional knowledge and ability of the trustee, and institutional trust that is established on rational calculation to maximize one's own interests in dealing with an institutional operation. A person may adopt different trust strategies in consideration of the relation with the trustee. Implications of each prototype of trust are elaborated in the dissertation. In particular, the kinship trust and the customary trust have important meanings for understanding the social trust in the society.
Furthermore, various social trust phenomena during an environmental decision-making process are observed and analyzed so as to gather plentiful data related to social trust from the life world for confirming, explaining and revising the indigenous social trust theory. The selected environmental decision-making process included two cases: one is a NIMBY public facility of the forth nuclear power plant of Taiwan Power Company, which is categorized into public environmental decision-making; and the other one is feng-shui customary, which is categorized into private environmental decision-making embedded in a indigenous cultural environment perspectives by a socio-semiotic method to manifest the meanings of feng-shui. Besides, the forth nuclear power plant case and the feng-shui case implicate two different knowledge systems, one is knowledge of “scientific micro-world” and the other one is knowledge of “life-world”. The two different knowledge systems are relative to two different social trust prototypes (e.g. professional trust and customary trust). The above-mentioned indigenous social trust theory is revised according to results of the experimental researches.
There are three major research outcomes of the dissertation. The first is to construct an “Indigenous social trust theory”. The theory claims that a mental operation of a truster includes two mental inspection processes before making a trust decision, including a relation inspection and an intention inspection. In other words, a relation with the truster and an intention of the trust will be two key factors to influence the trust mental operation implicating a “subjective and an irrational” trust mental operation. The claim is entirely different from Western trust theories based on a rational calculation and an objective risk assessment of trust. The second outcome is to propose a unique concept of “customary trust” by connecting subtly to an indigenous cultural belief system so as to form a “feng-shui schema” concept. The concept of feng-shui schema is helpful for explaining many indigenous trust phenomena, such as why even well-educated scholars trust easily a feng-shui master etc. Finally, the concept of the customary trust is clarified by differentiating from a “customary belief” concept.
Subjects
關係網絡
核四
鄰避設施
風水
習俗信任
social trust
relation context
NIMBY facility
nuclear power plant
feng-shui
customary trust
socio-semiotic
cultural schema
Type
thesis
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