Familism as a Gap between Generalized and Particularized Trust and its Determinants

Familism is a concept suggested by E. Banfield in 1958 which is described as inability of community members to overcome their immediate material interests and act together for public good. F. Fukuyama scrutinizes the concept through theory of social trust. He argues that the level of familism is a factor which prevents family firms to become large corporations with employed management. That is why familism is a cultural phenomenon which may constrain the development of a society. The problem of the study is a lack of empirical research of familism and its determinants. The aim of the study is to reveal determinants of the level of familism. The data of 6 wave of World Values Study was employed for the analysis with the use of multilevel regression. The key concept was measured as a difference between trust to family and trust to people met for the first time. One of the main conclusions of the study is that different countries significantly vary in the level of familism. Subjective importance of the family, number of children, the fact that respondent lives with parents and attributes himself to working class were among factors which significantly increase the level of familism, while satisfaction with democracy, participation in voluntary organizations and attributing oneself to higher class were among factors significantly decreasing the level of familism. Overall, it was proven that familism must be seen through the prism of trust theory and it can be stated that familism is a complex phenomenon which is characteristic to the society on the whole but also varies within different social groups.