Trust of Nations: Looking for More Universal Values for Interpersonal and International Relationships

Abstract

The objective of this study is to review past research on people’s sense of trust as reflected in the data from longitudinal and cross-national comparative surveys by the Institute of Statistical Mathematics. First, I explain some history of our survey research. Second, I give a brief review of the studies on sense of trust. Third, I summarize some aspects of the fundamental social values of the Japanese and their sense of interpersonal trust as identified in our Japanese National Character Survey. Fourth, I present a crossnational comparative analysis of interpersonal trust and institutional trust, including the Seven Country Survey (Japan, the USA, and five European countries) (1987–1993), Japanese immigrant surveys, the East Asia Values Survey (2002–2005), the Pacific-Rim Values Survey (2004–2009), and the Asia-Pacific Values Survey (2010–2014). To overcome the limitations of the studies based mostly on the items of the General Social Survey or the World Values Survey, I explore more basic social values on human bonds that may underlie people’s sense of trust beyond differences in countries or time. The final section presents some comments for our future research.