Birth cohort and social change in Chinese college students’ interpersonal trust: A cross-temporal meta-analysis, 2000–2019

Abstract

Whether social development promotes trust or hinders it has been a controversial issue. The study conducted a cross-temporal meta-analysis of 160 studies adopting Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS) to investigate trust among Chinese college students and to explore the impact of social change on trust. The 160 papers involved 70, 394 college students, and the data was collected from 1998 to 2017. Results showed that the interpersonal trust among Chinese college students increased by 1.05 SD from 1998 to 2017. Besides, typical social development indicators and indicators related to college students are selected. The lay analysis was used to analyze the relationship between social indicators and the level of interpersonal trust among college students 10 years ago, 5 years ago, and at present. The results showed that trust was significantly positively correlated with college graduates, the gross domestic product (GDP), etc. 10 years ago, 5 years ago, and at present, respectively. While significantly negatively correlated with the unemployment rate and Gini coefficient at present. The above results indicate that interpersonal trust among Chinese college students presents an upward trend over time with social development. While the high unemployment and high Gini coefficients in the process of social development would be risk factors for trust growth in the future.