ABSTRACT
A variety of empirical studies over the last ten years consistently show that Japanese are much less trusting of others than are Americans or Europeans. It is instructive to note that Francis Fukuyama, in his highly influential book Trust: The Social Virtues and Creation of Prosperity, appears to contradict the work of Toshio Yamagishi and his colleagues when he describes Japanese society as high in trust. As this book illustrates, high dependence on the group and high visibility in one's daily life allows the group to demand and enforce behavioral conformity. This chapter describes ways in which the Japanese social structure is designed to encourage group affiliations. Nevertheless, despite the incomplete nature of the theoretical argument, it is clear that there is a relationship between the type of all-encompassing group affiliations one sees in Japan and the relatively low levels of generalized trust exhibited by the Japanese.
