Understanding the trust deficit in China: Mapping positive experience and trust in strangers

The observation that in China people generally do not trust strangers motivated us to study this phenomenon. We used the literature of guanxi to define strangers, and we drew on intergroup contact theory to hypothesize that positive experiences with outgroup, but not with ingroup members will increase trust in strangers. In three experiments we found that perceiving support from (Study 1), receiving help from (Study 2), and being trusted by (Study 3) outgroup members led to higher trust in strangers. Indirect reciprocity mediated this relationship, suggesting that people generalize experiences with one outgroup member to other social actors, and in turn, increase their trust in strangers. Study 4 showed that intrapersonal trust increased after a positive outgroup experience. Study 5 replicated this finding using secondary field data. This research contributes to the trust literature by showing how specific and eventful experiences increase trust in strangers.