An evaluation of determinants of interpersonal trust in task groups

Abstract

In the present study the effect of the variables openness and realization on the level of trust, in short term task grou,ps was investigated. The theory which the study was based upon was the TORI theory which was developed by Jack and Lorraine Gibb. Although in the TORI theory, as the name indicates, trust, openness, realization and interdependence were taken as the major aspects of the trust level in groups, in the present study, only two of these variables, namely openness and realization were taken as the independent variables and their relation with the level of trust was investigated. It was hypothesized that in the groups where openness is present, the trust level will be higher than the groups where closed communication takes place. And the second hypothesis stated that; in the groups where realization is present, the trust level will be higher than the groups where it is absent. Openness was defined as free flow of communication, ideas, feelings and perceptions among the group members, and realization was defined as members of the group being role free. To test for these hypotheses four conditions were set forward, which were open and role free, open and role bound, closed and role free, and closed and role boundJand for each of these conditions three discussion groups each made up of five people were included in the experiment. Thus total number of 60 subjects (11=28, F=32) participated in the experiment. The analysis of the findings supported the first hypothesis in the direction that the trust level of the groups where open communication took place was significantly higher than that of the closed groups. However for the second hypothesis no significant difference could be obtained among the role free nad role bound groups. This nonsignificance could be explained by the insufficiencies in the parts of the sample and the experimental manipulation.