Trauma and Trust: How War Exposure Shapes Social and Institutional Trust Among Refugees

Abstract

The brutal wars in Iraq, Syria and now Ukraine have caused a massive influx of refugees to Europe. Turkey alone has received more than 4.8 million refugees. An important precondition for their economic and social incorporation is trust: refugees need to trust the citizens as well as the state and the justice system to find their place in the host country. Yet refugees’ propensity to trust may be affected by cultural differences between their home and host countries, their personal conflict exposure and the experiences they had on the run. This study investigates how individual differences in exposure to armed conflict and institutional breakdown shape two types of trust among refugees: Generalized social trust and trust in the institutions of the settlement country. We survey a large and diverse sample of refugees from Syria and Iraq living in Turkish communities and deploy well-established measures of conflict exposure, posttraumatic stress, and posttraumatic growth. We find that higher degrees of conflict exposure are positively related to social trust, and to trust in courts and the police. These positive findings are largely driven by refugees who had very personal and emotionally powerful experiences. The psychological mechanism of posttraumatic growth cannot explain these findings, however, suggesting positive experiences of cooperation in the midst of war and displacement are potentially a better explanation for this finding than positive psychological changes resulting from trauma. At the same time, conflict exposure is negatively related to trust in political institutions. Posttraumatic stress may be the mechanism behind this result. We discuss the implications of these findings for the integration of war refugees—a topic that is tragically of great relevance today.

The impact of discrimination and support on immigrant trust and belonging

“…Experiences related to flight can shape attitudes towards the host society in various ways. For instance, a recent study by Hall and Werner (2022) shows that experiences of trauma shape refugees' trust in institutions differently depending on the type of experience, indicating both negative and positive effects on institutional trust within the receiving country. There are also effects related to the asylum process in the receiving country, where Esaiasson et al (2022) show that the migration decision affects asylum seekers' perceptions of the host country, with positive effects of acceptance and negative effects of rejection.…”

Proximate Exposure to Conflict and the Spatiotemporal Correlates of Social Trust

“…These findings are concordant with other recent findings that show that the perceived hostility of an outgroup member conditions altruism toward them (Hall & Kahn, 2020a). Hall and Kahn (2020b) find important diverging outcomes of trust and sectarianism for Syrian refugees who relocated to Sweden and to Turkey. Those living in Sweden were less likely than their counterparts in Turkey to voice sectarian opinions and reported higher levels of social trust, including in their outgroup.…”

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress, anxiety, and depression, along with their associated factors, among Eritrean refugees in Dabat town, northwest Ethiopia, 2023

“…Refugee populations are forcibly displaced from their homes as a consequence of natural disasters and armed conflicts [ 1 – 4 ]. A significant burden of psychiatric morbidity falls on populations exposed to the effects of war and forced migration, particularly those suffering from disorders like PTSD, anxiety, and depression [ 5 – 9 ].…”