Trust - Our World in Data

Trust is essential for community, wellbeing, and effective cooperation. How does trust vary between different societies and locations and what matters for levels of trust?

Contents Trust is a fundamental element of social capital — essential for the cohesion of communities, vital for effective cooperation, and crucial for economic development. On this page we present data on trust and examine the distribution and reliability of available measures. We also explore the research that studies the link between trust and economic development. See all interactive charts on trust ↓ Interpersonal trust around the world One of the most widely used tools to measure trust attitudes across the world comes from the World Values Survey – an international research project that

related reading

• The Inequality-Trust Nexus Revisited: At What Level of Aggregation Does Income Inequality Matter for Social Trust?link.springer.com
• How and why humans trust: A meta-analysis and elaborated modelpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Wayback Machinencase.me
• The smart move: we learn more by trusting than by not trustingaeon.co
• On the Origins of Trustdigital.lib.washington.edu
• Minimal-trust investigationscold-takes.com
• Interpersonal trust across six Asia-Pacific countries: testing and extending the 'high trust society' and 'low trust society' theory - PubMedpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Coercion is an adaptation to scarcity; trust is an adaptation to abundance — LessWronglesswrong.com
• POVERTY, TRUST, AND SOCIAL DISTANCE: A SELF-REINFORCING “POVERTY TRAP”? | Social Philosophy and Policy | Cambridge Corecambridge.org
• High Trust Society | the singularity is nearergeohot.github.io
• Normies mistrust weirdos -- and they’re right to do sorivalvoices.substack.com
• Trust develops gradually via making bids and setting boundaries — LessWronglesswrong.com