High Levels Of Social Trust Research Articles

Self-Selection or Socialization? The Longitudinal Relation Between Civic Engagement and Political Orientations Among Adolescents

Social capital theory states that civic engagement generates positive outcomes, such as social trust and political interest. Likewise, studies show that those involved in civic engagement generally report higher levels of social trust and political interest. It is still unclear, however, whether these differences are the result of socialization or selection. We used between-effects and fixed-effects regressions to examine the development of political orientations in a three-wave longitudinal sample of 1,050 adolescents. From our results, volunteering seemed to have no socialization effect whatsoever on political interest and potentially a weak enhancing effect on social trust. Associational membership did not predict social trust over time, but it seemed to socialize members into increased political interest over time. The results are discussed in light of the social capital debate about how civic engagemend in associational life and volunteering do – or do not – function as schools of democracy.

Ethnic diversity, out-group contacts and social trust in a high-trust society

Although ethnic diversity is widely believed to undermine social trust, several scholars have argued that this outcome ultimately depends on the extent of high-quality contacts between diverse groups as well as the extent of equality in society. This article scrutinises these different hypotheses by exploring the association between ethnic diversity and social trust among Swedish schoolchildren. Building on data from Sweden, where legacies of equality would be expected to provide unique opportunities for building trust among diverse groups, the contribution of the article to the literature is twofold. First, it was found that contextual diversity is only weakly related to adolescents’ trust. Furthermore, while interactions revealed that a higher socio-economic level in a classroom reinforces, rather than cushions, the adverse effect, it is concluded that contextual measures obscure the micro-level dynamic underlying the association between diversity and trust in classrooms. Second, when accounting for compositional effects, and the distinction between in-group and out-group contact, the findings strongly supported the conflict hypothesis, while rejecting the contact hypothesis. The principal finding is that ethnic diversity in a classroom undermines social trust among native-born adolescents, whereas the effect is the exact opposite for minorities. In addition, social trust is only promoted if adolescents interact with members of their ethnic in-group. Because these disconcerting results were found in the high-trust context of Sweden, it is suggested that similar findings are likely in less favourable settings. The article concludes by arguing that the high levels of social trust in traditionally homogenous, but increasingly segregated, countries such as Sweden may conceal the fact that individuals primarily include others who are similar to themselves in their ‘imagined communities’.

Does social trust increase willingness to pay taxes to improve public healthcare? Cross-sectional cross-country instrumental variable analysis

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of social trust on the willingness to pay more taxes to improve public healthcare in post-communist countries. The well-documented association between higher levels of social trust and better health has traditionally been assumed to reflect the notion that social trust is positively associated with support for public healthcare system through its encouragement of cooperative behaviour, social cohesion, social solidarity, and collective action. Hence, in this paper, we have explicitly tested the notion that social trust contributes to an increase in willingness to financially support public healthcare. We use micro data from the 2010 Life-in-Transition survey (N = 29,526). Classic binomial probit and instrumental variables ivprobit regressions are estimated to model the relationship between social trust and paying more taxes to improve public healthcare. We found that an increase in social trust is associated with a greater willingness to pay more taxes to improve public healthcare. From the perspective of policy-making, healthcare administrators, policy-makers, and international donors should be aware that social trust is an important factor in determining the willingness of the population to provide much-needed financial resources to supporting public healthcare. From a theoretical perspective, we found that estimating the effect of trust on support for healthcare without taking confounding and measurement error problems into consideration will likely lead to an underestimation of the true effect of trust.

UNDERSTANDING PATHWAYS AMONG SOCIAL CAPITAL, DEPRESSION, AND SUICIDAL IDEATION FOR KOREAN ELDERLY

Unfortunately the suicide rate of older adults in South Korea has been ranked first among OECD countries for long periods of time. Previous studies have identified older people’s socioeconomic status, physical health, mental health, and lack of social support are significantly associated with suicidal ideation. However, little research has been conducted to examine how older adults’ social capital including social relationship can mitigate suicidal ideation mediated by depression. For data analysis, 3524 older adults from the Korean welfare panel study data were utilized. We used structural equation modeling to examine direct and indirect effects among social capital, depression, and suicidal ideation. Results showed that higher levels of social trust and satisfaction from family relations significantly predicted lower levels of suicidal ideation. In addition, indirect paths from social capital variables including social trust, reciprocity, and relationships to suicidal ideation were all significantly mediated by levels of depressive symptoms. The findings indicate that enhancing older people’s social capital can reduce their suicidal ideation as well as depressive symptoms. Thus, we need to consider how to develop social capital through strengthening social trust, reciprocity, and supportive networks among older adults.

The Economic Dimension of Social Trust

Social trust is increasingly seen as a non-economic determinant of economic development. Its positive impact on the economic sphere of social life, proven by numerous studies, is an incentive for new research initiatives examining the social trust level, since the results may be vital for the local policy-making. The main aim of the article is to study the relationships between social trust and the economic development. To accomplish this goal, a social trust indicator and an economic ranking list for the researched units were created.The statistical analyses performed demonstrated a statistically significant correlation between the examined phenomena and proved that the highest developmental level is a characteristic feature of the districts with a high level of social trust. This conforms the claims of Polish and international scholars who see trust as a non-economic determinant of economic development.

Donating Time or Money? The Effects of Religiosity and Social Capital on Civic Engagement in Qatar

Few studies have examined the role of religiosity and social capital on civic engagement in the context of a Muslim country. In this paper, we explore the impact of religiosity and social capital on charitable donations and volunteerism in Qatar. Drawing on a nationally representative survey from Qatar, we consider various attitudinal and behavioral measures for capturing religiosity and social capital. The results indicate that, even after controlling for a wide range of demographic variables, behavioral measures have a stronger effect than attitudes. Individuals who regularly perform daily prayers are more likely to donate than those individuals who simply describe themselves as religious. Similarly, individuals who are more active in their neighborhood engagement are more likely to volunteer than those who merely report high levels of social trust. These results suggest that when it comes to the relationship between religiosity, social capital and civic engagement, individual behavior is much more predictive than attitudes alone. We also find that even in the case of Qatar, where citizen wealth has rapidly increased in the last few decades, there is little evidence of substitution effects: citizens do not appear to trade-off or substitute between time and money. Instead, more religious and active citizens are likely to do both.

Can Putnam's theory explain high levels of social trust?

The Nordic countries hold the highest social trust scores in the world with averages up to 76%. There are, however, regional differences. When measuring the level of social trust in a rural area such as Ringkøbing-Skjern Municipality (RSM), located in peripheral Denmark, the result is an astonishing score of 91%. How can we explain why the RSM achieves such a high social trust score? One first answer could be based on Robert Putnam’s theory on voluntary organizations. In fact, logistic regressions with predicted probabilities show that voluntary work has a strong positive effect on a citizen’s social trust. This result is useful for geography as it shows that peripheral rural areas may perform extremely well in terms of social trust which again could be used by them as a new and overlooked brand for attracting newcomers.

A Geographic Information System (GIS)-Based Analysis of Social Capital Data: Landscape Factors That Correlate with Trust

The field of community sociology has yielded rich insights on how neighborhoods and individuals foster social capital and reap the benefits of interpersonal relationships and institutions alike. Traditionally, institutions and cultural factors have been lauded as catalysts of community social life and cohesion. Yet, the built environment and configuration of the landscape, including infrastructure, amenities and population density, may also contribute to community social capital. In this article, we embedded zip code-level responses from Harvard University’s Saguaro Seminar’s 2006 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey with a geographic information system. Specifically, we correlated responses on residents’ general trust, trust of one’s neighbors, and trust of members of other racial groups with local urban environmental factors and infrastructural indicators such as housing and street conditions, land use, city form, amenity access (e.g., libraries and schools), home vacancy rates, and home value. We conducted these tests at the national level and for Rochester, NY, due to its many survey responses. We found that housing vacancies drive down levels of social trust, as captured by homeownership rates and tenure, yielding higher levels of social trust, and that certain urban facilities correlate with high trust among neighbors. Results can inform urban planners on the amenities that support sustainable community ties.

Trusting other people

The importance of interpersonal social trust is difficult to exaggerate. It builds societies and lowers most kinds of transaction costs. The normative ideal in a society is to have high levels of social trust and a minimum of differences in trust between social, economic, and political groups. These normative expectations are put to a test using World Value Survey data from some 80 different countries. If one had high hopes, the outcome is somewhat of a disappointment. The level of social trust is only on a reasonable level in a very limited number of countries—in the Nordic countries, in the Netherlands, in Switzerland,Australia, and New Zealand. In most other countries, the majority of citizens do not trust their fellow man. Furthermore, except for gender and age differences in social trust, which tend to be minor in most countries, there are rather clear (and normatively unwanted) group differences in social trust in many countries, and especially so in established democracies. Citizens with university degrees, in good health, and gainfully employed do trust other people much more than citizens with low education, in poor health, and out of work. Less fortunate and less privileged people across the world tend to have lower levels of interpersonal trust. That is not good for them, and it is not good for society.

Social trust, workplace organization, and the comparative advantage of nations

In this paper, I consider a specific channel through which trust between parties to an exchange can go on to affect nations’ comparative advantage in certain industries. My approach revolves around the autonomy that employers (principals) grant to workers (agents), which is a key feature of workplace organization. I hypothesize that social trust generates a comparative advantage in industries with more autonomous micro production environments. I employ individual-level data on work autonomy to construct a measure of the extent to which industries are characterized by autonomy in the production process. Results of a cross-country cross-industry analysis confirm that countries with higher levels of social trust have a comparative advantage in high-autonomy industries and vice versa. Results are robust to the possibility of reverse causality. The paper’s key contribution is to provide a link between the microeconomic literature on workplace organization and the comparative macroeconomic literature on social trust.

The relationship between higher social trust and lower late HIV diagnosis and mortality differs by race/ethnicity: results from a state-level analysis.

Introduction: Black men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to suffer a disproportionate burden of new HIV diagnoses and mortality. To better understand some of the reasons for these profound disparities, we examined whether the association between social trust and late HIV diagnosis and mortality differed by race/ethnicity, and investigated potential indirect effects of any observed differences.Methods: We performed generalized structural equation modelling to assess main and interaction associations between trust among one’s neighbours in 2009 (i.e. social trust) and race/ethnicity (Black, White, and Hispanic) predicting late HIV diagnosis (a CD4 count ≤200 cell/µL within three months of a new HIV diagnosis) rates and all-cause mortality rates of persons ever diagnosed late with HIV, across 47 American states for the years 2009–2013. We examined potential indirect effects of state-level HIV testing between social trust and late HIV diagnosis. Social trust data were from the Gallup Healthways Survey, HIV data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and HIV testing from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Covariates included state-level structural, healthcare, and socio-demographic factors including income inequality, healthcare access, and population density. We stratified analysis by transmission group (male-to-male, heterosexual, and injection drug use (IDU)).Results: States with higher levels of social trust had lower late HIV diagnosis rates: Adjusted Rate Ratio [aRR] were consistent across risk groups (0.57; 95%CI 0.53–0.62, male-to-male), (aRR 0.58; 95%CI 0.54–0.62, heterosexual) and (aRR 0.64; 95%CI 0.60–0.69, IDU). Those associations differed by race/ethnicity (all p < 0.001). The associations were most protective for Blacks followed by Hispanics, and least protective for Whites. HIV testing mediated between 18 and 32% of the association between social trust and late HIV diagnosis across transmission group but for Blacks relative to Whites only. Social trust was associated with lower all-cause mortality rates and that association varied by race/ethnicity within the male-to-male and IDU transmission groups only.Conclusions: Social trust may promote timely HIV testing, which can facilitate earlier HIV diagnosis, thus it can be a useful determinant to monitor the relationship with HIV care continuum outcomes especially for racial/ethnic minority groups disproportionately infected by HIV.

Judgmental God image, social embeddedness, and social trust among the highly religious in the United States

In this article we explore two propositions concerning the manner in which judgmental God image affects social trust among the highly religious in the United States. One proposition argues that having a judgmental God image and being highly embedded in a community of co-religionists can create low levels of social trust through social bonding and the formation of particularized trust. The other proposition maintains that embeddedness in a moral community of co-religionists helps to reinforce the idea that people are basically good and require love and forgiveness. This leads to higher levels of trust. We test an interaction between judgmental God image and social embeddedness with OLS analysis and data from the 2014 Baylor Religion Survey. We restrict the analysis to the highly religious, those who have no doubt about the existence of God and belong to a place of worship. We find that respondents with a judgmental God image who do not belong to a moral community with any or a few friends have the lowest levels of social trust. Those who have a judgmental God image but are highly embedded in a moral community with at least half of their friends have higher levels of social trust. Embeddedness negates the negative effects of judgmental God image on social trust. Implications for research are discussed in the conclusion.

Generalized Social Trust and International Dispute Settlement

ABSTRACTWhat determines the success of a peaceful settlement attempt of a border dispute? In order to fully understand why decision makers choose to put an end to an ongoing conflict, it is necessary to consider the social trust levels of the general populations in both states. International conflict settlement requires public support at the domestic level. If a state’s general population perceives the potential dangers of a settlement as too severe, the conclusion of a peace agreement will be difficult. We argue that high levels of social trust allow citizens (1) to favor more conciliatory foreign policies and (2) to be more optimistic about the future behavior of other states. In democratic settings, these public attitudes serve as powerful constraints for decision makers. As a result, high aggregate levels of social trust should be directly related to concession-granting behavior by democracies as well as effective dispute settlement among jointly democratic dyads. We test these expectations with a new aggregate-level measure of social trust and find mixed support for our hypotheses: While trust does not influence the behavior of challenger states, it does have strong effects on democratic target states and jointly democratic dyads.

Does social capital influence preferences for aging in place? Evidence from urban China

ABSTRACTObjective: This study investigated the relationships between social capital and preferences for aging in place among older urban adults in eastern China.Method: Quota sampling was used to recruit 456 respondents aged 60 and older from Gusu District, Suzhou City, in 2015. Random-effects logistic regression was used to test the proposed model.Results: Respondents who had better quality family social capital, a higher level of social trust, and more organization memberships were more likely to choose to live in local communities, even after we controlled for individual characteristics.Discussion: The findings highlight the important role of both family and community social capital in influencing preferences for aging in place among older adults in urban China. This is particularly important for developing long-term care systems for older adults living in naturally occurring retirement communities.

Solid or Flexible? Social Trust from Early Adolescence to Young Adulthood

The belief that people are generally fair and trustworthy has generated plenty of scholarly attention in recent decades, particularly in the Scandinavian countries, which are often known for high levels of social trust. This article draws attention to the current discussion in the literature on whether social trust is a stable cultural trait marked by persistence or is based on experiences and subject to change throughout life. Based on unique longitudinal data from five different cohorts of young people in Sweden, ranging in age from 13 to 28 years, this article provides an empirical contribution on how social trust develops over time. The results show that there is a greater degree of instability in social trust between 13 and 15 years of age than in other age groups, and that social trust appears to stabilize with age. Findings also indicate that there are substantial inter‐individual differences in social trust among young people within the same age group, both in initial levels and in the rates of change over time. The article concludes that although social trust is relatively stable it tends to crystallize in early adulthood, highlighting the relevance of the impressionable‐years hypothesis.

A Comparison of Online and Offline Social Participation Impacts on Generalized Trust

Generalized trust, which arguably follows from civic participation, brings positive consequences with regard to the individual and social goal attainment. Since sociability, especially when it comes to the young people, is increasingly exercised on the Internet, the main goal of this research paper was to set side by side the impacts of online (SNS) and offline social participation on the generalized trust. Research questions are explored by means of a field survey conducted on a sample of research participants aged between 18 and 35 years. The results indicate that the membership in civic organizations is associated with higher levels of social trust, whereas the participation in Internet social networking sites (SNSs) does not show this association. The results also revealed that civic activity on SNSs is not independently associated with generalized trust. These results are interpreted by evoking structural and motivational characteristics of online and offline social networks. In addition to the main research questions elaboration, socio-demographic predictors of generalized trust are also discussed.

Corporate Resilience to Banking Crises: The Roles of Trust and Trade Credit

Are firms more resilient to systemic banking crises in economies with higher levels of social trust? Using firm-level data in 34 countries from 1990 through 2011, we find that liquidity-dependent firms in high-trust countries obtain more trade credit and suffer smaller drops in profits and employment during banking crises than similar firms in low-trust economies. The results are consistent with the view that when banking crises block the normal banking-lending channel, greater social trust facilitates access to informal finance, cushioning the effects of these crises on corporate profits and employment.

National income inequality and self-rated health: the differing impact of individual social trust across 89 countries

ABSTRACTThe well-known Income Inequality Hypothesis suggests that income disparities in a country are detrimental for people's health. Empirical studies testing this hypothesis so far have found mixed results. In this study, we argue that a reason for these mixed findings may be that high national income inequality mostly harms individuals with high levels of social trust. We employ data of the World Value Survey and European Value Survey, using information on 393,761 respondents within 89 countries. Multilevel regression analyses, across countries and within countries across time, confirm findings from earlier studies that there is a negative association between national income inequality and self-rated health. Our results also reveal that national income inequality is especially detrimental for trustful citizens: while the effect of income inequality is nearly absent among people with low social trust it is negative among people with high social trust.

Social capital influences farmer participation in collective irrigation management in Shaanxi Province, China

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of four components of social capital on farmers’ participative behaviour in collective actions for constructing and operating small-scale groundwater irrigation systems on the Guanzhong Plain, Shaanxi Province, China.Design/methodology/approach– The four components (social networks, social trust, social reciprocity and social participation) were derived by employing exploratory factor analysis. Logistic model was used to estimate the influence of these components on farmers’ participative behaviour. Information was obtained from a field survey covering six counties in 2011 of Shaanxi Province, China.Findings– The findings indicate that considering different components of social capital allows for a better understanding of farmers’ participative behaviour. The authors find that higher levels of social trust and social participation lead to a higher propensity for collective action, while social reciprocity reduces the probability of participation. Other socio-economic factors and farming characteristics such as education levels, cultivated area, cropping patterns and grain subsidies also have a significant impact.Practical implications– The findings suggest creating favourable conditions for communication and information exchanges between households, which enhance their trust of each other, and encourage farmers to participate in collective affairs. Moreover, supportive rules are necessary for the future development of collective action. The results of this study also have implications for national irrigation plans for small-scale irrigation facilities in other developing countries.Originality/value– A consideration of the different components of social capital allows for a more precise understanding of farmers’ participative behaviour.

Sustainable entrepreneurship in conditions of UN (Safety) and technological convergence

These days the Internet has revolutionized lives not only of particular people, but it has also influenced the functioning of market economy in terms of globalization and technological convergence. The key condition of development and increase in popularity of e-services is maintaining the high level of social trust to this form of providing services and preventing social threats. The stability of functioning and information society development depends on open, reliable and safe cyberspace.