ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate the genetic and psychological underpinnings of generalized social trust, an orientation that refers to one's expectations about the trustworthiness of strangers. We make a number of contributions to the literature. First, using a new dataset containing information on a large sample of German twin pairs (N = 1980 pairs), we replicate previous studies on the heritability of social trust. Our analysis supports previous research showing modest heritability estimates for social trust. Second, we examine whether seven different psychological traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, self-efficacy, and cognitive ability) are related to social trust, a number of which we find are correlated with trust in theoretically expected ways. Lastly, we estimate the extent to which genetic factors account for the correlation between psychological traits and social trust. We find evidence that genetic factors account for a large amount of the correlation between social trust and two psychological traits-agreeableness and neuroticism. In addition, we find that the correlation between cognitive ability and social trust is primarily due to common environment. Our results provide important insights on the underpinnings of social trust.

中文翻译：

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广义社会信任的遗传和心理基础

摘要在本文中，我们研究了广义社会信任的遗传和心理基础，这种定向是指人们对陌生人的信任度的期望。我们为文献做出了许多贡献。首先，我们使用一个包含有关大量德国双胞胎样本（N = 1980对）的信息的新数据集，复制了以前关于社会信任遗传性的研究。我们的分析支持先前的研究，该研究显示了对社会信任度的适度遗传力估计。其次，我们研究了七个不同的心理特征（开放性，尽责性，性格外向性，和ness可亲性，神经质，自我效能感和认知能力）是否与社会信任有关，我们发现其中许多与理论上预期的信任相关。最后，我们估计遗传因素在多大程度上解释了心理特质与社会信任之间的相关性。我们发现证据表明，遗传因素占社会信任与两个心理特征（愉快和神经质）之间的大量关联。此外，我们发现认知能力和社会信任之间的相关性主要是由于共同的环境。我们的结果提供了关于社会信任基础的重要见解。我们发现认知能力与社会信任之间的相关性主要是由于共同的环境。我们的结果提供了关于社会信任基础的重要见解。我们发现认知能力与社会信任之间的相关性主要是由于共同的环境。我们的结果提供了关于社会信任基础的重要见解。