DOI: 10.6129/CJP.20160825
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2016, Vol.58, No.3, 169-185

Cognition- and Affect-Based Trust in the Context of Intergenerational Interactions: Their Distinctions and Functions

Shih-Yi Jhuang（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）；Kuang-Hui Yeh（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University；Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica）；Chih-Wen Wu（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）

Abstract

Trust is a vital indicator of the parent-child relationship quality. However, the dimensional structure of trust and
its potential functions in the parent-child conflict situations have less been investigated. The purpose of this research was two-fold. First, it aimed to verify the proposed two-dimensional concept of trust, cognition- and affect-based trust. Considering the research focus on the children’s side in intergenerational interaction context, cognition-based trust is rooted in the perception of parents' competences, and affect-based trust the accumulated fondness for parents. Second, it attempted to compare the functions of these two dimensions of trust in different parent-child conflict situations, including different types of conflict issue and different conflict dyads. To achieve the purposes above, two independent studies were conducted. Study 1 verified the two-dimension (cognition- and affection based) “parent-child trust scale” developed by this research which was measured with 3 different situational cues (i.e., conflict issues) in the fatherand mother-child conflict respectively, using data from 207 undergraduate students. Study 2 explored the functions of children’s cognition- and affect-based trust toward parents on their reflective thinking and empathy to parents in the conflict context, using data from another sample of 218 undergraduate students. The results in Study 1 found that the “parent-child trust scale” had a stable two-factor solution and a great internal consistency reliability of each subscale, no matter the children’s trust was measured towards father or mother and measured towards the conflict issues about 
children’s academic performance, interpersonal relationship or life habits. The SEM results in Study 2 showed that Children’s cognition- and affect-based trust towards their parents had positive associations with reflective thinking and empathy to parents in the conflict context. However, the strength of associations varied with both the type of issues and the targets with whom the children interact in the conflict context. Additionally, the results from both studies steadily showed that the effects of affection-based trust on parent-child interaction manifested much higher cross-situational consistency than the effects of cognition-based trust. In sum, the above findings may contribute to the application of trust concept in parent-child interactions.

Keywords: affect-based trust, cognition-based trust, parent-child conflict, parent-child relationship