Rethinking Trust and Its Relationship to Social Capital
New data from the Pew Research Center indicate that trust in others across the United States has declined from earlier decades. The General Social Survey (GSS) has been asking whether “most people can be trusted” since 1972, and now, Pew has asked the same question in their 2023–24 survey. In 2018, the GSS found that 34 percent of Americans said “most people can be trusted.” Six years later, according to the Pew survey, that figure remains unchanged.
Trust has long been understood to be a keystone of thriving, civic communities. Declines in trust have often been presented as problematic; if society is generally distrustful of one another, individuals will retreat from civil society, they won’t be able to work together to solve problems and provide aid and support when needed, and social anomie and isolation—a fact of American social life which has grown so large that the United States is in the midst of a “loneliness epidemic”—will continue to deepen.
The data from Pew survey questions that understanding. What is clear from the survey is an undercurrent of distrust in the United States and the differences between the “Trusters,” those who said “most people can be trusted,” and “Distrusters,” those who said “most people cannot be trusted,” are not as large as one might expect.
For example, when Americans were asked about the likelihood of bringing a meal to a neighbor or friend who was sick, 70 percent of Trusters and 62 percent of Distrusters reported that they would be either “extremely” or “very likely” to do so when needed. Relatedly, if asked to bring in mail or water plants for a neighbor, 82 percent of Trusters and 67 percent of Distrusters state that they would be “extremely” or “very likely” to help with their neighbor’s mail or plants. When it comes to donating money or items to charity or a cause, 60 percent of Distrusters and 74 percent of Trusters report having done this in the past year.
On the other hand, when it comes to activities and behaviors Americans do not do, there are small differences between Trusters and distrusters too. On the question of opening one’s door if someone knocks and they don’t know who it is, only minorities of both groups indicate that they would open their doors always or most of the time; just 37 percent of Trusters and 21 percent of distrusters would do this. Making small talk with people Americans don’t know is sadly a norm; Americans are not talking with others and just 20 percent of distrusters and 29 percent of Trusters report doing this always or most of the time. Similarly, Americans do not leave the doors to their homes unlocked (nine percent of distrusters and 13 percent of Trusters) or leave their belongings unattended (five percent of distrusters and 6 percent of Trusters). The data also confirm that Americans continue to avoid attending community meetings (18 percent of distrusters and 24 percent of trusters have done this in the past year) and fail to work with others on a community problem (21 percent of distrusters and 27 percent of trusters have done this in the past year)
There is no question that on some measures there are bigger differences between trusters and distrusters such as helping out with a neighbor’s mail compared to minimal differences of Americans leaving their homes unlocked or being open to chatting with strangers. However, even with the larger divide survey items, significant numbers of Americans are nevertheless engaging in neighborly behavior even when they do not hold high levels of generalized social trust.
Socio-political theorists like Locke, Tocqueville, and, more recently, Putnam have emphasized the importance of civil society as the main factor for a healthy society. The sociologist Georg Simmel wrote, “trust is one of the most important synthetic forces within society.” Yet, the Pew data calls that into question, overemphasizing trust and its impact on a thriving, social and democratically responsive community.
With so much residential sorting, there are neighborhoods with varied levels of trust and Pew notes that these trust measures generally map onto the civic health of particular communities. Pew found that Americans with lower levels of education or income happen to be less likely to say most people can be trusted, for instance.
However, the overall behavioral picture is clear: trusting one’s neighbors and others is valuable in creating responsive and adaptable communities. Yet, in an environment of declining trust, Americans are still engaging in communal activities, forcing us to rethink the notion that trust is a is such a powerful factor in a functioning society; it appears that many Americans who have low levels of social trust will still behave in predictable and beneficial ways in one’s communities even when there are low levels of trust.
Originally published at AEI Ideas: https://www.aei.org/society-and-culture/rethinking-trust-and-its-relationship-to-social-capital/