Societal Trust and Geography

Le, Stephen H. T.

doi:10.1177/1069397113485330

Cited by 13 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Low levels of generalized trust might increase the desire to limit one’s social contacts to a smaller circle of friends and acquaintances and avoid unfamiliar others (who might be carriers of unknown pathogens/diseases). Supporting this reasoning, pathogen prevalence is associated with lower trust levels across countries (Le, 2013) and American states (Varnum, 2014).…”

Section: Explaining Cultural Changementioning

confidence: 88%

Ecological dimensions explain the past but do not predict future changes in trust.

Stavrova¹,

Evans²,

Brandt³

2021

American Psychologist

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Concerns about declining trust and rising cynicism are recurrent in academic research and the media. Yet, prior studies focused on explaining, rather than predicting, temporal changes in trust. We tested prediction models of trust change across (up to) 98 countries over six measurement waves (from 1981 to 2014). We tested whether different ecological predictors (e.g., pathogen prevalence, population diversity, inequality) explain the past and predict future trust levels across countries. We used societal growth curve models to disentangle between-from within-country effects and evaluated the accuracy of the models' out-of-sample predictions using the train-test split method: We used data from 1981-2009 to "train" the models and obtain predictions of trust for the period of 2010-2014. None of our models was more accurate in predicting future trust than a simpler baseline model. Moreover, we did not observe a universal decline in trust. Instead, temporal changes in trust were countryspecific, highlighting the locality of cultural change. Most ecological predictors were correlated with between-country differences in trust. Only resource availability and moral opinion polarization were associated with within-country changes in trust: Countries that became less wealthy and more morally polarized over time also became less trustful. These results highlight important differences between explanatory and predictive models and suggest that ecological theories of trust might be of limited use when predicting future cultural shifts.

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Section: Explaining Cultural Changementioning

confidence: 88%

Ecological dimensions explain the past but do not predict future changes in trust.

Stavrova¹,

Evans²,

Brandt³

2021

American Psychologist

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“…Especially under conditions of uncertainty where there is often greater resource risk, trust allows for exchanges to take place. Uncertainty may rise if, for example, the institutions are rife with corruption or when economic conditions are generally unstable, often due to political factors, as evidenced in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe, Africa, and South America (Le 2013; Park 2003). Romania, in particular, is known for its political corruption and instability (Rothstein and Eek 2009).…”

Section: Exchange and Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exchange and the Creation of Trust and Solidarity across Cultures

et al. 2022

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The emergence of trust and solidarity is arguably foundational for economic development and social order. Yet many studies, often survey-based, document large disparities in general trust and social cohesion between countries. Can mutual trust and solidarity arise between people even in areas of low general trust, or do national cultural contexts block such connections? We report an experimental investigation of the dynamic between national environments and local social interactions, specifically those embedded in social exchange. Results of our experiments conducted in the United States and Romania, societies marked by relatively high and low general trust, respectively, show that while national context impacts the level of relational trust formed within dyads, only this emergent relational trust affects dyadic solidarity in both societies. Importantly, burgeoning solidarity has persistent consequences for future exchanges and subsequent solidarity, thus experimentally demonstrating critical linkages between macro- and micro-level precursors to social order.

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“…(vi) Geography Geography has a bearing on interpersonal trust, as weather and terrain develop the type of society that people form. Le (2013) shows that higher geographical latitude leads to lower disease prevalence, lower income inequality, and less ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity, and these in turn lead to higher social trust. He also points out that more rugged terrain leads to low social trust, probably because in this terrain small-sized groups usually develop and they do not communicate much among the groups.…”

Section: The Society-based Theory Of Interpersonal Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social trust: its concepts, determinants, roles, and raising ways

2019

Social Trust and Economic Development

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As Aristotle observed 2400 years ago, human beings are by nature social creatures. Social trust is the underlying foundation of relationships among individuals, groups, and other components of a society. Knack and Zak (2003) claim that 'trust is essential to myriad aspects of civil society'. People exercise a certain extent of trust when dealing with others, and on this basis expect certain types of responses. Without trust in others' actions, people may have to consider too many contingencies and uncertainties to take action, destroying the foundation of community and society. Without social trust, a country's economy cannot perform well, because transaction costs-costs in undertaking economic transactions by economic entitieswould be too high. Hence, social trust is a key determinant of social and economic development as well as of human well-being. Social trust has been a serious social and economic issue in Korea in the recent past. It has been found to be remarkably low in Korea relative to living standards in Korea and to levels of social trust in other countries. On 'interpersonal trust', a constituent element of social trust measured by the World Values Survey (WVS), Korea ranked 31st with a score of 31.7 over the period 1981-2008 (Algan and Cahuc 2013). This indicates only 31.7 percent of Koreans responded 'most people can be trusted'. The Korean score compares to Norway's score of 68.1, which ranked highest over the same period. Even more serious is that social trust has declined over the past four decades. Korea's score of 36.0 by Wave 1 (1981-84) of the WVS declined to 26.5 by Wave 6 (2010-14), which is the latest WVS survey. 1 Taking into account that different numbers of countries were surveyed over the six waves, Korea ranked in the 38th percentile on average over the six waves. According to the Wave 6 Survey, Asian neighbours including Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore scored higher levels of interpersonal trust than Korea, let alone northern European countries. Prospects for interpersonal trust in Korea are not bright. A 2014 survey of middle and high school students found that only 12.4 percent said they feel most people can be trusted (The DongA Ilbo 2014). As discussed O. Yul Kwon-9781784719609

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Societal Trust and Geography

Cited by 13 publications

References 39 publications

Ecological dimensions explain the past but do not predict future changes in trust.

Ecological dimensions explain the past but do not predict future changes in trust.

Exchange and the Creation of Trust and Solidarity across Cultures

Social trust: its concepts, determinants, roles, and raising ways

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