Journal of Student Research 2018

26 Journal Student Research the group as a unit as well as the members of the groups individually. These findings suggest that performance in the workplace can be affected by trust in teams, an important factor to consider when evaluating the success of a work group. There were two trust conditions: high and low trust. In the high-trust condition, all participants received information from the researcher indicating that their partners for the experiment were reliable and would not take advantage of them. In the low-trust condition, each participant received information indicating that their partners were unreliable and would likely take advantage of them. The study was conducted with groups of 3 college-aged students each working with a different colored set blocks used to build a tower as a group. Each member took a turn in stacking one block at a time for a set amount of time (Dirks, 1999). Each group completed eight trials of building the tower and the individual colored blocks were counted separately (i.e. all blue blocks for member 1, yellow for member 2 and green for member 3). Each trial was followed by a discussion period in which the researcher evaluated communication as a factor of cooperative or individualized behavior. The discussion period allowed for team members to discuss strategy for upcoming trials. The goal of the activity was to measure whether members of the group equally contributed to the group [indicating trust] or tried to work individually [indicating lack of trust], measured by the number of blocks total. It was found that those in the high trust condition performed more cooperatively relative to those in the low trust condition. Additionally, those in the high trust condition were able to stack a higher number of blocks, thus performing significantly better than those in the low trust condition. In this study, it was demonstrated that trust influenced the motivation to cooperate in high or low trust groups to affect group process and performance. For example, when the individuals were told their group members were reliable and would not take advantage of each other before they started the trials, the members developed an initial level of trust in their group. When trust in a group was low, members were more likely to work independently (Dirks, 1999). However, if trust was high, the study indicates that participants were more motivated to work together toward a common goal. Given the analysis of previous research on trust, the purpose of the current study was to expand and explore correlates of trust in the work environment. In order to do this, the measures of trust, perceived similarity, and team satisfaction used by Ennen and colleagues (2015) were also used in the current study to see if their results could be replicated for individuals reflecting on their relationships with their coworkers. In Ennen Current Study