Take a chance: Trust-building across identity groups
| Author | Yoshiko M Herrera,Andrew H Kydd |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211058588 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Take a chance: Trust-building
across identity groups
Yoshiko M Herrera & Andrew H Kydd
Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract
Mistrust is a common cause of conflict between individuals belonging to different identity groups. When can such
mistrust be overcome? We present a theoretical model of trust-building across social identity groups to address this
question. Trust between groups increases when individuals in one group are willing to take a chance on engaging
with members of the other group, their engagement is positively reciprocated, and they are able to credibly com-
municate the experience to their fellow group members, thereby increasing their belief that members of the other
group are trustworthy. This process is made easier if the individuals are not too hostile to the out-group, are flexible
enough to change their beliefs in response to new information, and are sufficiently attached to their own group to be
honest about their experiences with out-group members.
Keywords
conflict, contact theory, cooperation, identity, reassurance, trust
(D)evolved government in Northern Ireland can only
flourish on the basis of trust between the par ties. In
order to re-establish that trust, it must be clear that the
transition from violence to exclusively peaceful and
democratic means is being brought to an unambiguous
and definitive conclusion.
Joint Declaration by the British and Irish Governments,
2003, §7.
Introduction
As the British and Irish governments recognized in their
joint statement on Northern Ireland in 2003, trust is an
important foundation of cooperative and peaceful rela-
tions. The violence associated with the ‘troubles’ in
Northern Ireland had destroyed intercommunal trust,
and it had to be rebuilt if peaceful self-governance was
to be sustained. This is true wherever intergroup conflict
has broken out, be it ethnic, religious, racial, or even
international. Consequently, trust and trust-building
have been examined in a wide range of contexts (Uslaner,
2018). Trust between identity groups is especially
important (Bahry et al., 2005; Putnam, 2007; Hooghe
et al., 2009; van der Meer & Tolsma, 2014) because
conflict between identity groups is often attributed to
mistrust. This makes it vitally important to ask how trust
can be built between identity groups that are currently
too distrustful to cooperate with each other.
Drawing on contact theory (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew
& Tropp, 2006; Hewstone, 2015; Paluck, Green &
Green, 2019), we argue that a key mechanism for
trust-building across groups is interpersonal interaction.
We analyze a game theoretic model of how positive (or
negative) interactions can spread through groups. The
model sheds light on when individuals will engage with
out-group members, and when positive interactions can
be credibly communicated to fellow group members,
building trust across groups. We use the standard con-
cept of trust in the rationalist literature (Kydd, 2005). An
individual is trustworthy if he or she prefers to reciprocate
cooperation with another individual rather than exploit
him or her. An individual is untrustworthy if he or she
prefers to exploit the other side when the other side
cooperates. An individual’s level of trust for another is
Corresponding author:
kydd@wisc.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2022, Vol. 59(5) 727–741
ªThe Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433211058588
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