Influences of Religion on Social Trust in America

Religiosity and Trust: Evidence from the United States

Review of Religious Research, 2020

Background Trust is one of the key driving forces behind human action and an important factor in shaping human interaction. Trust can improve economic growth, political and civic involvement, democratic stability, and subjective well-being. Yet, trust has been in decline for the last 60 years in the U.S. Purpose This article tests the effect of several indicators of religiosity, including an index for both social and individual religiosity, on trust. Common religious doctrine instructs followers to place their trust solely in God, and can therefore be interpreted as a determinant of generalized trust. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to find out whether religious people are more likely to be distrustful of others and whether they are more likely to be misanthropic. Methods We use the US General Social Survey (GSS, 1972–2018, [Formula: see text]), a large, recurring, and nationally-representative sample of U.S. adults. Using the GSS, we investigate the relationship between religios...

Trust in Others: Does Religion Matter?

Review of Social Economy, 2010

Though the recent literature offers intuitively appealing bases for, and evidence of a linkage among religious beliefs, religious participation and economic outcomes, evidence on a relationship between religion and trust is mixed. By allowing for an attendance effect, disaggregating Protestant denominations, and using a more extensive data set, probit models of the General Social Survey (GSS), 1975 through 2000, show that Black Protestants, Pentecostals, fundamentalist Protestants, and Catholics, trust others less than individuals who do not claim a preference for a particular denomination. For conservative denominations the effect of religion is though affiliation not attendance. In contrast, liberal Protestants trust others more and this effect is reinforced by attendance. The impact of religion on moderate Protestants is only through attendance, as frequency of attendance increases trust of others while the denomination effect is insignificant.

(WP 2009-01) Trust in Others: Does Religion Matter?

2008

Attachment to God and Social Trust

Research suggests that religious participation is associated with feelings of social trust. A separate line of work shows that individuals who develop secure, intimate relationships with parents, caregivers, and others have higher levels of trust than those who do not. The current study integrates these two strands of theory and research by examining (1) whether attachment to God has a unique association with social trust, (2) whether different attachment "styles" (i.e., avoidant, anxious) produce variations in trust outcomes, and (3) whether the findings are significant net of controls for sociodemographic characteristics, religious service attendance, prayer, denominational affiliation, and images of God. Analyses are conducted using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey (BRS), a nationwide sample of U.S. adults. Findings suggest that both avoidant and anxious attachment to God are inversely related to overall trust, generalized trust (unknown people and strangers), and particularized trust (neighbors and coworkers). These two measures also interact with education (but not marital status, race, or income) to predict trust in the following way: Both avoidant and anxious attachment to God have stronger inverse associations with trust among individuals with lower levels of education compared with their more highly educated counterparts. Overall, attachment to God may offer an explanation for trust not captured by more widely used indicators of religious life.

Trust and Confidence in Institutions: Religious Beliefs and Educational Attainment

European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 2018

The main objective of the paper is the analysis of intergenerational or cultural transmission of religious values during adolescence in order to explain interpersonal trust and confidence in institutions in adulthood. Trust and confidence in institutions outcomes are examined using the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2008 Religion III survey. Overall, the results are in line with previous literature: religious intensity and educational attainment are significantly and positively correlated with trust and confidence in institutions. When instrumental variables are used, the results suggest that religious engagement does not significantly explain interpersonal trust though it is significantly related to confidence in institutions.

Trust and Confidence in Institutions: Religious Beliefs and Educational Attainment Daniel Miles, (PhD in economics

Trust, Religiosity, and Response to Poverty

Coursework | American University, 2021

I use the ANES 2020 survey data to examine the conditioning effect of religiosity on the relationship between trust in government and people's support for the federal government aid to the poor. The results show in the context of low to medium political trust, higher religiosity leads to less support for increasing government aid to the poor. The findings suggest government redistribution policies such as aid to the poor can further become a politically polarizing issue as religiosity and trust in government decline more in the United States.

Individual religiosity and interpersonal trust in a Catholic country. The case of Italy

2019

Starting from Tocqueville (1954 [1862]) and Durkheim (1951 [1897], 1997 [1912]), religion has been considered one of the most important sources of social cohesion. More recently, since “social capital” has become one of the most widely researched and discussed concept in the social sciences, the role of religion in fostering social cohesion and providing other collective goods received new attention scholars. For example, Robert Putnam observed that in the United States “religious involvement is an especially strong predictor of volunteering and philanthropy” and that “religiosity rivals education as a powerful correlate of most forms of civic engagement” (2000: 67). Fukuyama (1995, 1999, 2000) analysed the role of different religions (Protestantism, Catholicism, Confucianism) in shaping different cultures of trust (particularly, the “radius” of trust, i.e. the attitude to trust only family members or to trust also other members of society in general). In an extensive review of the ...

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