Is the importance of religion in daily life related to social trust? Cross-country and cross-state comparisons

Abstract

We look at the effect of importance of religion in daily life on social trust, defined as the share of a population that thinks that people in general can be trusted. We make use of new data from the Gallup World Poll for 109 countries and 43 U.S. states. Our empirical results indicate a robust, negative relationship between this measure of religiosity and trust, both internationally and within the U.S. The size of this association increases with the degree of religious diversity.