Trust and Happiness: Comparative Study Before and After the Great East Japan Earthquake

Abstract

The positive relationship between trust and happiness has been demonstrated by the literature. However, it is not clear how much this relationship depends on environmental conditions. The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 is considered one of the most catastrophic events in human history. This disaster caused not only physical damage for Japanese people, but also perceived damage. Using individual-level panel data from Japan covering the period 2009-2012, this paper attempts to probe how the relationship between trust and happiness was influenced by the Great East Japan Earthquake by comparing the same individuals before and after the earthquake. A fixed-effects estimation showed that there is a statistically well-determined positive relationship between trust and happiness and this relationship was strengthened by disaster, especially for residents in the damaged area. We argue that social trust is a substitute for formal institutions and markets, which mitigates the effect of disaster-related shock on psychological conditions such as happiness. Therefore, a trustful society is invulnerable to a gigantic disaster.

New Evidence on Trust and Well-being

“…One important but less studied channel from social trust to well-being resides in the resilience that enables high-trust communities to respond more successfully to natural disasters or economic shocks. Where communities with initially high levels of social trust were faced with disaster-as in the examples of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami (Yamamura, Tsutsui, Yamane, Yamane, & Powdthavee, 2015) -the resulting efforts to cooperate in dealing with the suffering and damage led to post-disaster levels of trust and sometimes even happiness higher than before the disaster. Analyzing the same event using only a post-disaster survey, Homerich 2012found social trust to differ across communities according to their degree of damage, significantly so for younger respondents, being higher in those prefectures that suffered more damage.…”

Social Trust, Pattern of Difference, and Subjective Well-Being

“…But social trust as an important part of social capital or the result of social capital development (D. Li, Eden, Hitt, & Ireland, 2008;Maseda et al, 2013), is it also significantly correlated to SWB? Some scholars (Kuroki, 2011;Usher, 2007;Yamamura, Tsutsui, Yamane, Yamane, & Powdthavee, 2015) have tried to answer this question. With the aid of the survey data from America (Usher, 2007) and Japan (Kuroki, 2011;Yamamura et al, 2015), they find that social trust can promote SWB, and there is a significant positive correlation between them.…”

The moderating role of kindness on the relation between trust and happiness

“…For example, both Ireland and Iceland experienced extreme consequences of the financial crisis in 2007 yet managed to sustain their happiness level over the years; this is often explained by the exceptionally high social support in these countries (Helliwell et al 2016). In Japan, the Great Earthquake led to heightened levels of trust and happiness in the region that experienced it (Yamamura et al 2015). These examples indicate that the impact of crisis on a country's well-being can be moderated by level of trust; when its initial levels are high, society's happiness may be elevated even in times of distress.…”