Developing trust in close personal relationships: ethnic Chinese’s experiences

ABSTRACT

This study seeks to understand and describe the essences of the experience of trust development in close personal relationships. A review of the literature reveals that prior Western studies emphasised the processes of trust development, while prior Chinese studies focused on actions that need to be taken to develop trust. In addition, most prior trust development studies were confined to workplace, exchange and acquaintance relationships. To fill the gaps, this empirical study seeks to understand how trust develops in close relationships between parents and children, married couples, romantic partners and close friends. It employs a qualitative phenomenological method to collect data through in-depth interviews with 14 Chinese adults in Taiwan who have successfully developed trust in these close relationships. The findings revealed that trust development involves not only demonstrating trustworthiness through meeting expectations based on roles, norms and needs but also engaging in effective communication in times of change and conflict. The findings advance the existing knowledge of trust development by providing a comprehensive, action-taking model with applicability to broader close relationships under-studied by prior researchers. They have implications on trust development strategies in the Chinese context that are critical for Westerners to know as they do business with the Chinese.

KEYWORDS:

• Trust development
• close personal relationships
• phenomenology
• action-taking
• demonstrating trustworthiness (fulfilling role obligations, reciprocity and meeting needs)
• effective communication
• ethnic Chinese's experiences in Taiwan

ACTION EDITOR:

• Dora Lau

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jenny Hsiu-Ying Chang, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of conflict resolution and an English professional. She has taught in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and worked as a researcher at Academia Sinica in Taiwan. She is a certified mediator in Florida, U.S., who has conducted conflict resolution workshops and presented in international professional conferences on topics including trust building, harmony and conflict resolution, cross-cultural conflict resolution, intercultural communication, and problem-solving and conflict transformation. Her publications include trust conceptualisation and trust building from cross-cultural approaches.

Honggang Yang, Ph.D., is the Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Nova Southeastern University in the U.S. He taught and chaired the conflict resolution programme at Antioch University and worked for the Carter Presidential Center of Emory University. Currently, he serves as a senior advisory editor for Peace and Conflict Studies and an editorial board member of Conflict Resolution Quarterly, The Qualitative Report, and American Review of China Studies.

Kuang-Hui Yeh, Ph.D. in Social and Personality Psychology, is now a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology in Academia Sinica and a joint-appointment professor of Psychology Department with National Taiwan University. He has been exploring indigenous conceptualisations, theories and paradigms for understanding Chinese family interactions and their impact on individual adaptation and development since 1985. In his recent publications, he has proposed the Dual Filial Piety Model and the Dual Autonomy Model for Chinese people.

Shih-Chi Hsu, Ph.D. in Psychology, has been graduated from National Taiwan University (NTU). She has worked as a research assistant at NTU and a post-doc fellow at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. Her areas of specialisation are: indigenous psychology, personality psychology, gender and psychology, and culture and family. She has won the Dissertation Award and the Dean’s Award for doctoral students given in 2015 by Taiwanese Psychological Association and School of Science at NTU, respectively. Her publications relate to the relationship between mother- and daughter-in-law, parent–child relationship, role obligation, interpersonal relationship, and harmony and conflict.