Reciprocity of Trust between Professionals and Their Secretaries

Abstract

This paper proposes and tests a model of interpersonal trust. It is hypothesized that trust between professionals and their secretaries is a reciprocally-reinforcing phenomenon. Participants were 21 attorneys, 31 high-school principals, 28 university department heads, and the secretaries of these professionals. Exogenous variables are locus of control, power expressed, power wanted, perceptions of power expressed and wanted by the other person, and the duration of the superior-subordinate relationship. Explanatory endogenous variables are boss' trust in their secretaries and secretaries' trust in their bosses. These two variables are specified as mutual reinforcers in a nonrecursive structural model, which is tested with a two-stage least squares confirmatory analysis. The reciprocal effects of trust overwhelmed the effects of the exogenous variables on the amount of trust bosses and secretaries had in each other.