The level of trust inherent in a society is important for a wide range of microeconomic and macroeconomic outcomes. This paper investigates how individuals’ attitudes toward social and institutional trust are shaped by the political regime in which they live. The German reunification is a unique natural experiment that allows us to conduct such a study. Using data from the German General Social...

Although there has been extensive research on the adverse impacts of perceived discrimination on health, it remains unclear how perceived discrimination gets under the skin. This paper develops a comprehensive structural equation model (SEM) by incorporating both the direct effects of perceived discrimination on self-rated health (SRH), a powerful predictor for many health outcomes, and the ind...

Stress responses in humans can be attenuated by exogenous oxytocin administration, and these stress-buffering properties may be moderated by social factors. Yet, the influence of acute stressors on circulating endogenous oxytocin levels have been inconsistent, and limited information is available concerning the influence of social support in moderating this relationship. In the current investig...

COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has been a growing concern. The pandemic proved to be very complicated with the mutated virus. Delta variant is contributing surge of cases across globe. Vaccine can socially contagious, requiring more stringent efforts from policy makers and health professionals in promoting uptake. Some evidence shows that acceptance appears have played an integral role successfully...

Distrust in scientific experts can be surprisingly stubborn, persisting despite evidence supporting the experts’ views, demonstrations of their competence, or displays good will. This stubborn distrust is often viewed as a manifestation irrationality. By contrast, this article proposes logic “status distrust”: low-status individuals are objectively vulnerable to collective decision-making, and ...

Determining whom to trust and whom to distrust is a major decision in impersonal IT-enabled exchanges. Despite the potential role of both trust and distrust in impersonal exchanges, the information systems literature has primarily focused on trust, alas paying relatively little attention to distrust. Given the importance of studying both trust and distrust, this study aims to shed light on the ...

The term “social Darwinism” owes its currency and many of its connotations to Richard Hofstadter’s influential Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (SDAT). The postSDATmeanings of “social Darwinism” are the product of an unresolvedWhiggish tension in SDAT: Hofstadter championed economic reform over free markets, but he also condemned biology in social science, this while many progres...

Social commerce is a promising new paradigm of e-commerce. Given the open and dynamic nature of social media infrastructure, the governance structures of social commerce are usually realized through reputation mechanisms. However, the existing approaches to the prediction of trust in future interactions are based on personal observations and/or publicly shared information in social commerce app...