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

Abstract

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.

The Role of School Climate in Explaining Changes in Social Trust Over Time

“…Generally, two divergent perspectives in the literature have gained particular attention (Abdelzadeh & Lundberg, 2017;Bauer, 2014;Uslaner, 2008). The first is the cultural perspective, which implies that social trust is "part of an enduring culture" and thus a relatively "sticky" factor that becomes exceptionally stable over time (Dinesen, 2012;Uslaner, 2002).…”

School, friends, or a matter of personality?

“…The current study explored the role of the school while also considering other relevant explanations, thereby going beyond prior studies in the literature. In addition, previous studies often focused on tolerance among adults; in contrast, this study considered tolerance among adolescents, which is important as this represents a formative period for social and political attitudes (Lundberg & Abdelzadeh 2017a;Abdelzadeh & Lundberg, 2017). Finally, by controlling for various competing explanations and several background variables, the current study noted the importance of multiple factors besides the school that may influence tolerance.…”

The Development of Generalized Trust among Young People in England

“…They are in agreement with Flanagan and Stout (2010), who found that social trust was still dynamic among mid to late adolescents and was strongly related to respondents' sense of solidarity in school and opportunities to engage in free discussions. They also tally with Abdelzadeh and Lundberg (2017), who reported on a Swedish longitudinal study and also found generalized trust to be relatively volatile in early to mid-adolescence and to become more stable in early adulthood.…”