Social Trust, Human Values, and Anti-immigrant Sentiment: Does Trust Work With or Against Values?

Abstract

Two separate lines of literature have analyzed the role social trust and human values, such as universalism and conservatism, have on anti-immigrant sentiment. While both show strong effects, the question of whether social trust weakens or strengthens already embodied values has not been addressed. The possibility that trust works against or with conservatism, for example, predicts two opposing forces on anti-immigrant sentiment. This study analyzes the potential moderating effect of trust on human values, and how this varies cross-nationally. It develops a conceptual framework that hypothesizes different models of trust and tests these using eight rounds of the European Social Survey (2002–2016). Findings point to trust consistently working with values, which suggests a magnification of conservative values’ anti-immigrant effects. While there is little evidence for national cultures of trust and values, country-specific results show variation in how trust moderates values, with greater evidence for trust’s moderation of conservatism and some unpredicted patterns in countries like Cyprus. Findings are discussed within the context of anti-immigrant politics and entrenched values, scholarly debates surrounding bridging and bonding, and the resulting extent of social trust’s radius.