Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
1129421 Social Networks 2009 7 Pages PDF
Abstract

This study seeks to shed light on the relationship between the situation and the activation of specific relationships. We hypothesized that the type of uncertainty present in a situation would prompt people to call upon different relationships based on different types of trust: cognitive trust for expertise and affective trust for friendship. We elaborated vignettes as name generators to test whether the colleagues called upon in different situations were perceived as being more friends or more experts. The perceived level of expertise and friendship were evaluated with Likert-style scales. The results support our theoretical argument to the effect that the “activation” of a relationship is influenced by the type of uncertainty a person is confronted to. Situations of information uncertainty elicit recourse to relationships based on expertise while ambiguous situations call for friendship.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Mathematics Statistics and Probability
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