Group-based trust, trustworthiness and voluntary cooperation: Evidence from experimental and survey data in China

Trust, trustworthiness and cooperation are crucial in achieving social goals, and are thus essential components of social capital. This paper reports the results of a series of lab and artefactual field experiments carried out in Shanghai to evaluate some of the key indicators of social capital in China. The groups selected for the study are middle school and undergraduate university students and community residents. The experiments comprise two public goods games, a gambling game and a trust game. The overall level of trust is negatively related to age, although trusting behavior is also affected by other factors, such as risk-taking.

► The current study focuses on different cohorts of subjects in Shanghai. They are university students, middle school students and community residents.
► The level of voluntary cooperation exhibits a “U”-shaped relationship with age. The youngest and oldest subject groups displayed higher levels of voluntary cooperation than the middle group which is believed to face more competitions.
► The university subjects turned out to be the most risk-seeking of the three groups.
► The regression analysis on levels of trust shows trust to have a positive correlation with voluntary cooperation, risk preferences and opinions of others’ trusting behavior. Whereas that on trustworthiness shows it to have a positive correlation with trust, voluntary cooperation, risk preferences and opinions of others’ fairness.
► The results of the post-experiment survey show the university students to be more willing to trust others about financial matters than private matters. All three subject groups expressed the belief that “most people are willing to help others”.