Measuring trust and trustworthiness of farmers in a conflict-vulnerable area in Mindanao, Philippines

Abstract

© 2018, College of Agriculture and Food Science, University of the Philippines Los Banos. All right reserved. The study measured trust and trustworthiness in a conflict-vulnerable area of the Philippines, using a trust game approach, and compared the results with a direct questionnaire approach. The participants were potential farmer cooperators in a project seeking innovative extension methods, emphasizing social capital enhancement. Trust is a key component of social capital. The trust game can be considered as a behavioral experiment and it produced a credible baseline quantitative (peso) measure of trust. That baseline measure can subsequently be compared with trust levels following interventions that focus on social capital enhancement. Various socioeconomic factors were positively related to trust. In particular, the positive relationships between trust/youth and trust/education provide encouragement for the future, as the education variable is obviously amenable to change. Another positive relationship between trust and wealth indicates that social capital enhancement may lead to positive wealth outcomes. The question arises as to whether or not an alternative method for measuring trust could give comparable results at lower research cost. Thus, a second approach to measuring trust was tried based on a direct questionnaire approach. However, the latter approach was not able to replicate the trust game result. This finding emphasizes the importance of the trust game, whereby actual trusting behavior can be observed and quantified.

Source or Periodical Title

Philippine Agricultural Scientist

ISSN

317454

Page

235-242

Document Type

Article

Subject

Conflict-vulnerable area, Social capital, Trust game

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