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Trust across Disciplines

Trust & social capital - Regarding sociology

Trust constitutes an important source for social capital within social systems. This is true both if "social capital" refers to the corpus of values within the entire society and if it indicates the resources of a certain organization.

Sociologists studied the first meaning of "social capital": trust is one of the feature of social capital, which is the group of norms and values that are able to make a society grow and develop. Social capital has been defined as the web of cooperative relationships between citizens that facilitates resolution of collective action problems.

James Coleman

Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity but a variety of different entities, with two elements in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structures, and they facilitate certain actions of actors - whether persons or corporate actors - within the structure. Like other forms of capital and human capital, social capital is not completely fungible but may be specific to certain activities. A given form of social capital that is valuable in facilitating certain actions may be useless or even harmful for others.

David Putnam

Social capital is features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated action. [...]

As elaborated by Putnam social capital inheres in the structure of social relations, as a potential for much social energy to be released. Social capital refer to three features of social life, namely social networks, shared norms and inter-personal trust.

It is often unclear, however, how Putnam conceptualises the relations between these basic features. An underlying idea seems to be that two features of association, the frequency of interaction and the degree of horizontal, symmetrical relations between actors, correlate positively with the development of trust and shared norms. Putnam insists that the relations must be symmetrical for reciprocity, trust and social capital to grow. [...]

Social capital works through multiple channels: information flows (e.g. learning about jobs, learning about candidates running for office, exchanging ideas at college, etc.) depend on social capital; norms of reciprocity (mutual aid) are dependent on social networks: bonding networks that connect folks who are similar sustain particularized (in-group) reciprocity, bridging networks that connect individuals who are diverse sustain generalized reciprocity; collective action depends upon social networks (e.g., the role that the black church played in the civic rights movement) although collective action also can foster new networks; broader identities and solidarity are encouraged by social networks that help translate an "I" mentality into a "we" mentality. [...]

When a group of neighbors informally keep an eye on one another's homes, that's social capital in action. When a tightly knit community of Hassidic Jews trade diamonds without having to test each gem for purity, that's social capital in action. Barn-raising on the frontier was social capital in action, and so too are e-mail exchanges among members of a cancer support group. Social capital can be found in friendship networks, neighborhoods, churches, schools, bridge clubs, civic associations, and even bars. The motto in Cheers "where everybody knows your name" captures one important aspect of social capital.

References

Hardin, R. (2003). Social capital and trust. Retrieved online.

Froestad, J. (2001). Robert Putnam's contribution to the trust debate. Notes for the book/Phd-seminar. Cape Town.

Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy. 6, 1: 65-78.

Other perspectives on social capital

This topic is studied in economics too.