Trust, Reciprocity, and Guanxi in China: An Experimental
Investigation AbstractWe examine the influence of social
distance on levels of trust and reciprocity in China. Social
distance, reflected in the indigenous concept of guanxi, is of
central importance to Chinese culture. In Study 1, some
participants participated in two financially salient trust games
to measure behavior, one with an anonymous classmate and the
other with an anonymous, demographically identical nonclassmate.
Other participants, drawn from the same population, completed
hypothetical surveys to gauge both hypothetical behavior and
expectations of others. Social distance effects on actual and
hypothetical behavior were statistically consistent. The results
together corroborated the hypothesized negative relationship
between trust and social distance. However, reciprocity was not
responsive to social distance. Study 2 found that affect-based
trust, but not cognition-based trust, played a mediating role in
the relationship between social dist