{"title":"How representative surveys measure public (dis)trust in science: A systematisation and analysis of survey items and open-ended questions","authors":"Anne Reif, Lars Guenther","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2022.2075373","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2022.2075373","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Over the past several years, scholars have debated the public’s (dis)trust in science. Since the ‘science and society’ paradigm of science communication has defined the crisis of trust between science and the public as a major concern, this article is interested in how public (dis)trust in science is measured in representative surveys of public perceptions of science and technology. The goal is to systematise survey measures using a theoretical model of (dis)trust in science as a multidimensional variable that is relevant to the relationship between the public, (intermediaries) and science. A systematic review of items and open-ended questions (n = 736) used in 20 representative surveys from various countries was conducted. The results show that surveys rarely measure distrust in science, and instead focus on trust in science – mainly at the macro-level – rather than trust in scientists (micro-level) or scientific organisations (meso-level). Benevolence is the dimension of trust considered most frequently; the media is predominantly included as a general type of contact with science without a direct link to (dis)trust. Hence, representative surveys cover a number of different aspects of public (dis)trust in science. However, there is room for improvement. Thus, this paper concludes with recommendations for future measures.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"11 1","pages":"94 - 118"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46163183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trust, experience and embodied knowledge or lessons from John Dewey on the dangers of abstraction","authors":"A. Seligman","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2021.1946821","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2021.1946821","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the connection between trust and confidence on the one hand and different forms of knowledge (abstract and general viz. particular and concrete) on the other. While the distinction between trust and confidence was first made by Niklas Luhmann their connection to forms of knowledge and so attitudes towards difference is new. Making use of insights afforded to us by John Dewey, I argue here for the dependence of trust on an ability to abide with ambiguity and the loss of control that the eschewal of generalised categories of knowledge implies. Finally, I draw social and political implications from these insights in terms of the ability to live with differences, with the stranger and with those ‘others' who cannot be known and so contained within abstract categories.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"11 1","pages":"5 - 21"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44512516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trust is political","authors":"Guido Möllering","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2021.2030892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2021.2030892","url":null,"abstract":"It is a sign of the times that an increasing proportion of papers submitted to, and published in, Journal of Trust Research (JTR) address the broad area of political trust. These studies mostly consider how members of the public do or don’t trust in various societal institutions. At the same time they work on the premise that such trust matters in the sense that, notably, an erosion of trust could severely impede cohesion and collaboration at large (see, for example, Festenstein, 2020; Hetherington, 2005). This makes trust and trusting political. Trust as an attitude with behavioural consequences connects, enables and comforts – or, when it is lacking or even turning into distrust, it separates, prevents and worries – in social relations. Thus, from the interpersonal to the institutional level, we might see trust as a vote on whom people are prepared to cooperate with (e.g. Hamm et al., 2016). The politics of trust revolve around securing allegiance and maintaining alliances of people with common interests. And trust implies a special form of reliance on others whom we can control and understand only partly at best. Especially in times of grand challenges, transformations and disruptions, ‘Who trusts whom?’ is just as much a political as a personal question. Any answer given reflects and affects ongoing social dynamics. The articles contained in this new JTR issue all speak to some extent to this political interpretation of trust and trusting. As usual, they were not curated based on this theme, but were simply next in the publication pipeline. Still, as I will attempt below, they can be connected as they all show us the political implications of trusting in current societies. First, Adam Seligman’s (2021) article on ‘Trust, experience and embodied knowledge or lessons from John Dewey on the dangers of abstraction’ essentially (re-)conceptualises trust as distinct from confidence. In short – and in my personal interpretation – to Seligman trusting means to suspend judgement and, in particular, to be able to deal with ambiguity, relying on experience rather than abstract knowledge. What makes his conceptual exploration ‘political’ is that he frames it in the context of (the troubles of) civil society. In particular, Seligman points out that trust matters where people lack the knowledge and ability to rely on abstractions of others – which would be a matter of confidence. This means that trust is essentially relevant in relation to strangers. The strangeness we all represent to each other could prevent us from starting cooperative interactions or relationships and from gaining the experiences that enable us to further extend trust. If we lose the ability to trust in this sense, ‘there can be no civil society to speak of’ (Seligman, 2021, p. 19). We might imagine it this way: Populists tell us to rely only on the people and things we (already) know. Hence they ask us to use confidence. Trust as experience, in contrast, lets us be open to what we do ","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"11 1","pages":"1 - 4"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44858679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The voice of distrust? The relationship between political trust, online political participation and voting","authors":"A. Koivula, S. Malinen, Arttu Saarinen","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2022.2026781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2022.2026781","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 In this article, we examine how political trust is associated with participation in political discussions on social media and voting activity. We explore whether social media can provide platforms for those who are passive in terms of formal political participation. Our data were derived from a representative survey based on a sample collected in 2017 from the Finnish population register (N = 2470). Our key findings were that online and offline participation were highly linked to each other. Those citizens who participated formally by voting were also more likely to participate online. Moreover, we found a moderating effect of political trust on the relationship between online and offline participation. Therefore, we concluded that social media platforms also provide channels for political participation for individuals with low political trust who do not participate formally by voting.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"11 1","pages":"59 - 74"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46306658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A stranger thing? Sweden as the upside down of multilevel trust","authors":"Gissur Ó. Erlingsson","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2021.2014337","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2021.2014337","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As a rule, citizens appreciate local more than central government. This paper proposes a new research agenda for multilevel trust studies by arguing that it is premature to believe that citizen’s proximity to officials by definition trumps distance. As in country-comparative studies, close attention needs to be paid to institutional quality in analyses of multilevel trust. To put this argument to work, a closer investigation of Sweden is conducted. Tracking three indicators of trust, with time-series stretching over two decades, Sweden turns out to be a curious outlier from the international pattern: Swedes trust their local government less than the state. To make this observation intelligible – while simultaneously aiming to contribute to a more nuanced theoretical understanding of multilevel trust – the mix of three features is identified for bringing this circumstance about: (1) the principal role Swedish municipalities have successively been given in implementing core welfare state assignments; (2) that several of the municipalities’ assignments are susceptible to corruption; and (3) that the increase in municipal responsibilities has neither been accompanied with institutions that guarantee accountability of politicians nor the impartiality of local bureaucracies.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"11 1","pages":"22 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41508562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trust in the American political parties and support for public policy: Why Republicans benefit from political distrust","authors":"Matthew L. Bergbower, Levi G. Allen","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2021.2014336","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2021.2014336","url":null,"abstract":"While political trust is well researched by political scientists, little attention has been paid to the repercussions of citizens’ lack of trust in the major political parties. Political parties are the institutions responsible for forming governing coalitions and channelling the policy preferences of the majorities that elected them; thus, we hypothesise that distrust in the parties can have some unsavory consequences. Namely that trust can be weaponized by elites and lead to fervent opposition to the other party’s policy proposals. Using a unique dataset from the Pew Research Centre, and leveraging an innovative instrument, we analyze how support for public policy is affected by trusting the parties to govern ethically and honestly. Our results are heterogenous. We find that respondents who trust the Republicans to govern ethically and honestly reward the party with opposition to the Democrats’ policy positions. Conversely, we find no change in support for public policy among those who trust the Democrats to govern ethically and honestly. The theoretical implications of these results speak to the rise of populism in America, a topic we also briefly address in the conclusion.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"11 1","pages":"42 - 58"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49323225","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Character strengths as predictors of trust and cooperation in economic decision-making","authors":"Steven G. Young, R. McGrath","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2021.1922911","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2021.1922911","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Cooperation occupies nearly every aspect of human life. While previous research focuses on how situational factors and personality predict cooperation, less is known about how specific character strengths predict cooperation. In Study 1, we find that higher Self-Control values and lower Inquisitiveness values were associated with a larger contribution in the Trust Game. In Study 2, we find that kindness positively predicted the total amount of money earned in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. However, Self-Control was not a significant predictor for any dependent measure. We discuss the theoretical and applied implications of these findings, compare our results to other research on dispositional predictors of trust and cooperation, and postulate that the oinconsistent role of Self-Control may be attribouted tof theoretical differences in the Trust and Prisoner’s Dilemma games. Finally, we offer future directions that can build on the present findings.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"10 1","pages":"159 - 179"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/21515581.2021.1922911","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48256023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Customer trust and perceived service quality in the healthcare sector: Customer aggressive behaviour as a mediator","authors":"A. Gur","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2021.1927063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2021.1927063","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Most healthcare providers experience some form of aggressive behaviour by patients and their relatives (i.e. customers). Customer aggressive behaviour (CAB) is detrimental to customers and healthcare providers, as well as to the overall service quality provided by the healthcare organisation. Drawing on the Social Exchange Theory, the purpose of the study was to examine whether customers’ trust in healthcare providers decreases incidents of CAB and in turn improves the perceived service quality of the clinic. Data were collected from 45 primary care clinics of the same organisation, including three sources: Customers (N=579); healthcare providers (N=398); and data provided by the organisation. The data were aggregated and analysed at the clinic level. The results confirmed a mediation model in which customer trust in healthcare providers reduced CAB as experienced by providers, which in turn led to higher levels of clinics’ perceived service quality. As CAB in this study was examined as a mediating factor, it was possible to investigate its role within the context of the organisational dynamic. Practically, these findings suggest that healthcare organisations should proactively create and nurture a culture of trust between customers and healthcare providers in order to promote service quality through reducing CAB.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"10 1","pages":"113 - 133"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/21515581.2021.1927063","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47035945","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A nonverbal signal of trustworthiness: An evolutionarily relevant model","authors":"A. Wood","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2021.1922912","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2021.1922912","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study introduces and provides evidence of an Evolutionarily Stable Signalling (ESS) System in the buyer-seller context through three experiments. An ESS system is one where a signaller (in this study, the seller) conveys positive intent to the receiver (customers) in a reliable manner that leads to the buyer’s benefits. This study uses the ‘felt’ or genuine smile of salespeople as a reliable signal. The non-consciously generated genuine smile of a salesperson leads to positive, trustworthy assessments by buyers. Buyers reach their conclusions about the trustworthiness of the salesperson rapidly and often without conscious evaluations. These studies simultaneously capture the response time and the cognitive assessments of the subjects. Their decision on the trustworthiness of the salesperson likely provides the foundation for subsequent cooperative exchanges. Using both response time and cognitive assessments allows these series of experiments to develop evidence of this ESS system in the present day.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"10 1","pages":"134 - 158"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/21515581.2021.1922912","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49406176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Christopher P. Reinders Folmer, D. De Cremer, Maarten J. J. Wubben, Marius van Dijke
{"title":"We can’t go on together with suspicious minds: Forecasting errors in evaluating the appreciation of denials","authors":"Christopher P. Reinders Folmer, D. De Cremer, Maarten J. J. Wubben, Marius van Dijke","doi":"10.1080/21515581.2020.1738944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21515581.2020.1738944","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In light of public examples of false denials, it is unsurprising that people’s beliefs about denials often are negative. However, inconsistent with such beliefs, denials often are sincere, and can facilitate trust repair. To illuminate this mismatch, we advance a framework based on Construal Level Theory, to explain how people may make a forecasting error when predicting their responses to denials. In two experimental studies, we reveal that people who actually received a denial after a possible transgression (a) were less suspicious, and experienced greater trust, and (b) displayed more trusting behavior than people who imagined this. These results suggest that people underestimate the effectiveness of denials in the reconciliation process.","PeriodicalId":44602,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Trust Research","volume":"10 1","pages":"22 - 4"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/21515581.2020.1738944","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47584872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}