Fragile Trust,Stable Mistrust: A Theory of the Formation and Sustainability of Social Trust

The Dispositional and Experiential Perspectives on Social Trust

The literature on the sources of social trust falls along two broad theoretical perspectives: the experiential and the dispositional (Dinesen and Bekkers 2017:79). Uslaner, a prominent voice on the dispositional side, argues that social trust is a worldview that shapes our social relationships rather than being shaped by them. That is, trustors are more likely to form relationships with people different from themselves, volunteer, and join associations that potentially build social trust, maintaining the trust they already possess (Uslaner 2002). Prior work suggests that engaging in activities such as volunteering can build social trust because it allows one to observe firsthand others giving of their time and resources to work toward a common goal (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006; Richey 2007; Stolle 1998). However, Bekkers (2012:241) gives us reason to believe this experience may simply enhance or maintain social trust and have little impact on mistrust. Examining participants from a four-year panel, he finds evidence for self-selection into giving activities among trustors—trustors are more likely to engage in voluntary activities and stick with them—while mistrusting individuals who do engage in such activities have high attrition rates. That is, although volunteering is the kind of experience that theoretically should build social trust, mistrustors may simply lose interest in it, even if enticed to participate.

Complementary to the experiential perspective, this early socialization itself is likely socially structured. A predictor of social trust is the social trust of one’s parents and even grandparents (Uslaner 2002, 2008; Wu 2022). In their early lives, trustors are likely embedded in communities of other families with high levels of education who also share their views and behaviors. Mistrusting individuals in their early lives are likely, similarly, to be embedded in communities characterized by lower levels of education and potentially concentrated poverty, where they experience more negative interactions (Chetty and Hendren 2018; Small and Adler 2019; Small and Feldman 2012). These early experiences, structured by socioeconomic factors, set up expectations that become self-reinforcing: because mistrustors expect that people in general are likely to take advantage of them, they only place trust in close family and friends, denying themselves the experience of having trust in others rewarded when there is risk of being taken advantage of, which consequently reaffirms their worldview (Yamagishi et al. 2015; Yamagishi, Kikuchi, and Kosugi, 1999).

Evidence for the dispositional theoretical perspective has come from studies using panel data and on migrants from low- to high-trusting cultures. ² Uslaner finds in one such study that social trust is one of the most stable attitudes in the American National Election Study and that it seems to have little to no relationship to participants’ self-reported social interactions (Uslaner 2002, 2008). Kiley and Vaisey (2020) find social trust to be one of participants’ more stable beliefs over time in the General Social Survey (GSS) 2006 to 2010 panels—what they term a “settled disposition.” Also, recently, Wu (2021) finds that migrants from French-speaking Canada, a region with historically low social trust, retain their pessimism after moving to English-speaking Canada, a region that has enjoyed a culture of high trust.

Scholars in the experiential tradition argue that with the right institutions—those that build systems that enable reputations to form, sanction for violations of trust, and reward for prosocial behavior—social trust can be built and sustained (Simpson and Willer 2015). Kim (2021) finds that migrants from East Germany to West Germany, a region with a culture of high trust, do experience an increase in social trust and attributes this to institutions governing labor in their new environment. Scholars in the experiential tradition argue that positive interactions with individuals in one’s social network builds social trust because individuals generalize these positive experiences to subsequent interactions with strangers (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006; Putnam 2000). Others using a mix of longitudinal and experimental data conclude that both self-reported and manipulated positive interactions in a participant’s informal social ties are associated with social trust (Freitag and Traunmüller 2009; Glanville et al. 2013; Harkness et al. 2022; Nee, Holm, and Opper 2018; Paxton and Glanville 2015). Recently, Mewes et al. (2021) provide support for the experiential perspective. Using GSS panel data, they find that major life events, such as the loss of a job or important social ties, predict declines in social trust. However, in contrast to Glanville et al. (2013), they find no significant effects of informal social interactions on social trust. ³

Fragile Trust, Stable Mistrust

I propose a theory of social trust development that roots it in early socialization while assigning importance of later experience differentially for trusting and mistrusting individuals. Drawing on Uslaner (2002), I argue that early socialization largely structures interactions rather than the other way around—trustors are likely more open to the activities that build trust than are mistrustors and therefore maintain their social trust. Mistrustors, on the other hand, likely avoid these experiences, maintaining their mistrust. However, while Mewes et al. (2021) find that major negative experiences impact all individuals’ views, I argue this impact will be different for trusting and mistrusting individuals. Namely, because mistrustors already have a pessimistic view, these experiences will serve to reinforce the mistrust they already possess. However, for trustors, significant negative experiences will undermine their worldview developed in early socialization, making it more difficult to maintain their social trust.

Yamagishi and colleagues’ research on social trust suggests that trustors and mistrustors differ in their openness to experiences that can build social trust. In their work, they find that although trustors prefer to behave prosocially, they are attuned to information suggesting whether their interaction partners will reciprocate. If this information suggests to them that their partners will not reciprocate their cooperation, they, too, will free ride. In contrast to trustors, mistrusting participants were impervious to this kind of information, behaving cautiously regardless of contextual signals (Yamagishi 2011; Yamagishi et al. 2015). Situations where there is a risk that others will not reciprocate one’s own prosocial behavior are those that can build trust—if one trusts another despite the risk of free riding and that risk is rewarded, this may lead one to question their cynicism. Yet Yamagishi and colleagues’ work indicates that mistrustors are more risk averse and simply avoid such situations, making it difficult to imagine them updating their priors (Yamagishi 2011; Yamagishi et al. 2015).

This prior work leads me to propose that mistrust is stable—mistrustors are avoidant of activities and, therefore, experiences that could build trust. Conversely, I propose that social trust is precarious—possible to maintain in a social environment compatible to its expectations but sensitive to loss in the face of substantive negative experiences. One may ask given this argument why we would not simply observe steadily declining trust overall. It is likely that the kind of negative life events with the potential to change the worldview of a trustor such as those Mewes et al. (2021) analyze are relatively rare. Because it is likely the kind of early socialization amenable to social trust is itself socioeconomically structured, it is likely that these kinds of events are rarer still for trustors. That is, if being embedded in a community characterized by higher socioeconomic status early in life includes the kinds of experiences theorized to build social trust, it is also likely this will give one the opportunities—access to higher levels of education, lucrative job opportunities—that make these experiences rarer still. I argue that there are well-documented cognitive biases serving as the mechanisms driving the differential effects of experiences on trusting and mistrusting individuals: the negativity and confirmation biases.

The Cognitive Mechanisms of the Negativity and Confirmation Biases

For my position that social trust is fragile, I draw on the research on the negativity bias. The negativity bias is the cognitive disposition where negatively valanced events have a greater, more lasting impact on individuals’ views than positive events (Baumeister et al. 2001; Fiske 1980; Tierney and Baumeister 2019). These scholars have found that we form negative impressions quickly, give greater weight to negative experiences, view cynical individuals as more competent, and remember negative events longer (Cunningham, Van Bavel, and Johnsen 2008; Rozin and Royzman 2001; Stavrova and Ehlebracht 2019). Work from communications scholars suggests that these dynamics, particularly in media, are driven by demand rather than media companies only supplying negatively valanced information (Trussler and Soroka 2014). On the overwhelming effect of the negativity bias, Baumeister et al. (2001:329) write, “bad events are so much stronger than good ones that the good must outnumber the bad in order to prevail.” Given this overwhelming effect of the negativity bias, I expect that despite having mostly prosocial interactions, significant negative events, such as those Mewes et al. (2021) test, are likely to have an outsized effect on social trust.

For my proposition that mistrust is stable, I draw on research on the confirmation bias (Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky 1982). Experimental studies starting in the 1960s demonstrate that we will seek out information that confirms deeply held beliefs and/or desired outcomes and screen out contradictory information (Nickerson 1998; Wason 1960). Humans have cognitive and temporal limitations that make continuously reassessing one’s worldview in light of new information and experiences unappealing (Hart et al. 2009; Kunda 1990). Therefore, when it comes to the deeply held views that have ordered our experiences, it is unsurprising that we would resist readily updating them in the face of contradictory experiences and information. Rather, this work predicts that we will draw on memories and/or pieces of evidence that allow us to retain those beliefs and discount new information. Given the prior research on how social trust is one of the more persistent beliefs individuals hold (Kiley and Vaisey 2020), it is likely mistrustors simply discount positive interactions as anomalous and resist updating their priors.

I furthermore argue that the negativity bias and the confirmation bias work together to make mistrusting individuals’ views particularly resistant to change. This position is informed by recent experimental studies from media scholars. These findings suggest not only that participants are more likely to select media focused on negative events but also that cynical participants are even more prone to confirmation bias than optimistic participants. That is, cynics were more likely to select pieces of media that confirmed their priors than were optimistic participants to select positive ones that confirmed their views (Van der Meer and Hameleers 2022; Van der Meer, Hameleers, and Kroon 2020). These findings lead me to argue that the confirmation bias is a powerful mechanism in the stability of mistrustors’ cynicism, but less so for trustors’ positive views. This is not just because of the overwhelming effect of the negativity bias on all individuals but also because of the even greater effect of the confirmation bias on those who already hold cynical views. Because negative events are recalled more easily for all people than positive, regardless of their social trust, a single, significant negative experience should be much more impactful in shaping individuals’ views than many positive experiences. In fact, Tierney and Baumeister (2019:27), longtime researchers on the negativity bias, estimate that on average, it takes roughly four positive experiences to overcome the impact of one negative experience. Therefore, these mechanisms are likely to interact strongly for mistrustors so that they discount positive experiences as anomalous, making it difficult to change their cynicism. However, because of the outsized role of the negativity bias, trustors’ positive views of others will be far more dependent on their ongoing interactions being relatively free of significant negative experiences and, therefore, fragile.

Data

Data for this study come from the 40 Families Study—62 in-depth, in-person interviews conducted in the United States in the summer of 2010 by researchers involved in the Science of Generosity Initiative. ⁴ I obtained the interview data after getting approval for the study through my university’s Institutional Review Board and completing the Science of Generosity’s application process. The interviewees were drawn from respondents to the nationally representative survey of the United States fielded by the Initiative. The interviewees were selected from 12 states to represent the four major U.S. census regions. A total of 51 survey respondents were selected for interviews, and 40 agreed to participate. Of these 40, 22 had a spouse or live-in partner who also agreed to participate (n = 62). Although not statistically representative, the interview sample was selected for variation in household and family characteristics, geography, community characteristics, and participation in a variety of giving activities (Herzog and Price 2016). The researchers provided information on the sex, race, age, household income, and state of residence at the time of the interview for each participant. I gathered information on the highest level of education for each participant from a close reading of their interview transcript. The descriptive statistics for the sample are in Table 1.

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Table 1.

Interview Participant Descriptive Characteristics, N = 62

	Overall sample	Trustors, n = 19	Mistrustors, n = 33
Female	32	8	18
Male	30	11	15
Age
25–34	14	3	9
35–44	19	5	10
45–54	14	5	7
55–64	13	5	6
65–74	2	1	1
Race
White	44	14	24
Black	8	3	4
Hispanic	5	1	3
Other	5	1	2
Education
Less than college	22	5	14
College	40	14	19
Household income
≤$25,000	6	1	2
$25,001–$50,000	13	3	9
$50,001–$75,000	16	3	11
≥$75,001	27	12	11
Region
Northeast	6	0	4
Midwest	12	7	4
South	25	8	12
West	19	4	13

Data Source: Science of Generosity 40 Families Study.

The transcripts from the 40 Families Study include the interviewer questions, interviewee answers, and ethnographic field notes from the interviewer’s observations of the interviewee’s neighborhood, home, and family. In the case of spouses or live-in partner couples, each member was interviewed separately. That is, if the interviewees were drawn from the same household, each interviewee was interviewed at a different time, independently of the other interviewee. Rather than one sitting, interviewees were interviewed in multiple sessions, typically two, to avoid fatigue and to avoid “observing a household on its ‘best behavior’” (Herzog and Price 2016:10). The interviews took between four and eight hours. The result is hundreds of pages of interviewer-interviewee interactions and interviewer notes, covering a range of narratives on social and political issues, altruism, and morality that is rare to find in such depth in a single data set.

The interviewees were asked a subset of the questions from the Science of Generosity’s nationally representative survey. These questions included a variation on the standard social trust measure: “Do you tend to be someone who trusts other people, including people you don’t know well, or someone who is cautious, careful, and not-necessarily-trustful?” ⁵ It is rare enough for the social trust question to be asked during in-depth interviews but rarer still for it to be asked in relation to such a broad range of other attitudes and self-reported behaviors. Participants were also asked questions measuring their social solidarity, experience being the recipient of others’ generosity, their early family experiences, and their own giving behaviors. Interviewers asked follow-up questions, asking interviewees to clarify and/or elaborate their answers as needed. The exact wording of the questions that were the focus for this study can be found in Table A1 in the Appendix.

As can be seen in the literature reviewed, the work on social trust largely tends to be quantitative analyses of survey responses (for notable exceptions, see Frederiksen 2019; Nee et al. 2018; Stolle and Nishikawa 2011). Although essential for understanding any social phenomenon, these approaches can be limited in their ability to uncover the mechanisms driving the empirical relationships they uncover. These rich, in-depth data, although limited in their ability to make claims about relationships that may exist in the population, do give the researcher insight into how individuals understand the development of their beliefs, attitudes, values, and why they behave the way they do. In the case of this study, my goal is to better understand how participants come to view people in general as trustworthy or not and how this impacts their own prosociality.

Method

I started with a deductive approach to analyzing these transcripts but took an approach of iteratively refining my arguments and conclusions after each examination of the transcripts (Tavory and Timmermans 2014). I first read all the interview transcripts, making notes on the characteristics of each interviewee. I focused on the questions of interest for this study only after gaining this holistic view of each participant. I coded the questions measuring social trust to identify themes across the transcripts, make connections to prior work on social trust, and surface additional questions that could be answered elsewhere in the interviews. Based on these themes, I then coded interviewees’ answers to questions on their personal experience being the recipient of others’ generosity, whether they believe in the need to take care of others, their early experiences, and their own participation in the activities theorized to build trust.

As a reliability check, I assigned a randomly selected subset of the interviews (n = 20) to a research assistant to code. The research assistant was given the full exchange of the interviewer’s questions and the interviewee’s open-ended answers for each of the questions of interest. The overall percentage of agreement on codes between myself and the research assistant ranged from a low of 75 percent to a high of 95 percent, with an average of 88 percent (see Table A2 in the Appendix). I classified each participant as a trustor or mistrustor based on a close reading of their open-ended answers to the social trust measures and any follow-up questions the interviewer may have had. The percentage agreement between myself and the research assistant on which participants should be classified as a trustor and which should be classified as a mistrustor were 90 percent and 85 percent, respectively. There were 19 interviewees coded as trusting, 33 as mistrusting, and 10 whose answers were too ambiguous to identify. The interviewees who were too ambiguous to identify as trustors or mistrustors were not included in the analyses—the results and the theoretical arguments are not based on these cases. Although these are not statistically representative data, these proportions are similar to the percentage of respondents who answered that “most people can be trusted,” 33 percent, and that you “can’t be too careful in dealing with others,” 61 percent, in the 2010 GSS (the year these data were collected). I used NVivo to code the transcripts (Feng and Behar-Horenstein 2019). To answer my research questions, I developed data matrices to identify which themes co-occur in which participants (Miles and Huberman 1994). This approach allowed me to identify those themes most often associated with social trust in these data. I assigned all interviewees pseudonyms to reference their quotes in the results section.

Social Trust and Participants’ Early Socialization

Several of the participants brought up their family and early life experiences in the formation of their views on the trustworthiness of people in general. For trustors, there was often an explanation for how their worldview was shaped by the actions and views of their families. The responses of Matthew and Nora were exemplary of this:

Many trustors were specific about the example their parents gave them in translating their worldview into actions. That is, they attributed their own efforts to engage in volunteering and other ways of giving to seeing their parents engage in these activities when they were children—16 out of 19 of the trustors discussed their parents’ example of giving in various ways when they were a child compared to 12 out of 33 mistrusting interviewees. Adam and Greg are two of these trustors who noted this specific connection:

It was not, however, just trustors who brought up their families in explaining the formation of their views—some mistrusting interviewees also attributed their views to their families. Rebecca is a mistrustor who acknowledged the role of her mother in shaping her worldview:

Although the literature on social trust notes activities such as volunteering with others in working toward a shared goal (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006; Putnam 2000) can potentially build social trust, I argue that it is likely that mistrusting individuals avoid such activities and that it ends up being trustors who self-select into them, simply maintaining their social trust (Uslaner 2002). The responses of both trusting and mistrusting interviewees give us reason to believe that the latter is true. Louis and Hillary are mistrustors who do not volunteer but also whose responses to questions on their interest in engaging more in prosocial activities indicate that the barrier is not simply lack of time or money:

Both trusting and mistrusting participants noted the role that their families and communities played in shaping their views. In their responses, many trustors made an explicit connection between the example of their parents volunteering and their own giving behaviors. Those mistrustors who said that they do not volunteer their time in any way were asked about their desire to do more if they could. Their responses suggest a route through which mistrust is likely to remain stable—although activities like volunteering are well theorized to potentially build social trust, mistrusting individuals are less engaged in them compared to trustors.

As noted in the theoretical background, trustors’ early socialization is likely structured by key socioeconomic factors, and this seems to be the case with trustors in this sample—a higher proportion of trustors had parents with a college degree or higher and recalled their situation as being “well off” or financially secure. Of the trustors who discussed their family’s financial situation when they were young, 8 of the 19 described remembering that they were financially secure. For the mistrusting interviewees, 7 of the 33 said the same about their family’s financial situation. Of the 17 trustors who discussed their parents’ occupation and/or education, 7 indicated at least one parent had a college degree or an occupation that would require one. Four of the 21 mistrustors who discussed their parents’ occupations when they were young indicated the same. This greater proportion of trustors whose parents had a higher education and more financial security suggests that they were embedded in a socioeconomic environment amenable to the kind of early socialization theorized to build social trust. However, although this difference in early socialization between trustors and mistrustors appears to be structured by socioeconomic factors, the results suggest it imparts an enduring disposition toward participation in prosocial activities that can maintain trustors’ worldview.

Giving as Intrinsically Valuable versus Transactional

In this section, I relate a potential mechanism linking examples of giving behaviors to trustors continuing to engage in the activities theorized to build and maintain social trust: that trustors view giving as an intrinsically valuable activity regardless of whether it has any discernable material outcomes. Given the prominence of examples of giving in trustors’ positive recollections of their early lives, the results suggest this has resulted in a valuation of these activities regardless of whether they have a noticeable, material impact. Although several trustors expressed the view that prosocial actions have value in that they are a means to achieve collective goals, it was more prominent for trustors to express the view that such behaviors also have intrinsic value. Robin and Josh were two trustors who viewed activities that involve giving as a moral responsibility:

Of note in the responses of Robin and Josh were their descriptions of giving when asked to explain why they thought it was necessary to engage in these activities. Robin explained that she considered it her “responsibility” to volunteer. Josh described volunteering as “morally right,” and when asked by the interviewer to clarify that he considered it a “moral responsibility,” he responded “yes.” This language describing these activities as motivated by a view that they are worth doing because they are good in and of themselves suggests a strong mechanism for why we should believe trustors are simply more likely to opt into trust-building activities. That is, regardless of if they see any material outcome of benefit to themselves or others, they feel morally responsible to engage in them.

No mistrustors expressed the view that giving of one’s time or resources to others was valuable in and of itself. Instead, most mistrustors did not note participating in such activities as much as trustors, and some expressed resentment to the idea that they should do so. Exemplary of this contrasting view on volunteering between trustors and mistrustors is Peter, who interestingly also speculates that maybe the reason others do have an interest in volunteering is “because they were raised that way”:

Another mistrusting interviewee, Julien, expressed skepticism of both the value of such activities and even of people who participate in them:

In response to questions regarding their own giving activities and how much they worry about being taken advantage of by others, trustors express the view that giving is not only an intrinsically worthy use of time but also something they consciously try to instill in their own children. For example, in Nora’s quote about growing up with “positive, Christian people” and how they influenced her views “just like hopefully I’ll influence my kids,” she expresses a desire to replicate the socialization she experienced growing up for her children. Caleb is a trustor who noted this in his response to questions about volunteering:

These responses suggest a potential mechanism for the early socialization and intergenerational transmission of social trust (Uslaner 2008). Trustors’ early socialization likely took place in communities where there were structured opportunities for volunteering and giving financially, giving them early examples to readily draw from when asked to explain their social trust. In turn, trustors place a higher value on engaging in the kinds of behaviors that are theorized to build and sustain social trust. Because trustors consider these activities to be worthy of engaging in in and of themselves, they build them into the lives of their children. Whether this structuring of their children’s activities around these giving behaviors is intended to build social trust in them can only be inferred. However, because they view the activities that prior work suggests can develop social trust as virtuous and, therefore, worthwhile for their children to engage in, social trust likely becomes a by-product of these activities, whether it was explicitly on their parents’ minds. Conversely, mistrustors expressed much less engagement in these activities, some even expressing skepticism over the motives of those who do. Because they seem to lack the intrinsic valuation of these activities, they are unlikely to engage their children in them either, making it less likely for them to experience the early socialization needed to develop social trust.

Experiences of Others’ Prosocial and Antisocial Behaviors

Most interviewees recounted several instances where they were on the receiving end of others’ generosity—from family, friends, and strangers and from organizations and institutions—including a majority of mistrustors. Rather than infer from experiences when others acted in a prosocial manner toward them that people in general are likely not out to take advantage of them, mistrustors seemed to bracket these as anomalous experiences. Instead, they focused on experiences where others betrayed their trust as their basis for inferring the trustworthiness of others. Julien, who despite also saying he had experienced others’ generosity, focused on a particular negative experience in explaining his cynicism:

This acknowledgment of experiencing the prosocial behaviors of others yet emphasis on specific negative experiences among mistrusting interviewees seems to undermine that positive interactions may build social trust by generalizing that experience. Furthermore, many mistrustors were focused on accounts of the selfish, cruel behaviors they saw depicted in the media rather than their own experiences. That is, a potential dynamic underlying mistrustors’ stable cynicism is an interaction between the negativity and confirmation biases: experiences where one was taken advantage of overshadowing any experiences of generosity and further information is filtered to confirm those negative experiences. Louis, who said he had received much help from others in his life, was typical of those who focused on the role of the media in shaping their views. The following was his response when asked to explain his mistrust:

One interviewee, Hank, rather than thinking about the focus on negative events in the media as evidence of a negativity bias among outlets and audiences, inferred from this that events where people are selfish or cruel must be underreported, not overreported:

The prominence of the information environment in discounting of personal experience of others’ generosity on the part of mistrusting interviewees did not mean that personal experiences were not important in interviewees’ accounts of what informed their worldview. However, the accounts of the role of personal experiences went in the direction of loss of social trust. That is, there were no interviewees who noted a positive experience that made them change from a mistrustor to a trustor. Jill and Olivia explained they formerly believed people in general were trustworthy but tied their becoming more skeptical to particular events:

These responses suggest that trustors’ worldview is fragile. That is, social trust may depend on one’s social context continuing to structure interactions so one’s trust is reciprocated—after salient negative experiences of the kind that Mewes et al. (2021) document, beliefs that people in general are trustworthy likely diminish.

Although a majority of all participants recalled benefiting from the generosity of others, this appeared to have little impact on mistrusting participants’ view of others. Rather, the results suggest the confirmation bias is at work—mistrustors either do not recall these experiences when prompted to think about the trustworthiness of people in general or bracket them as anomalous. In mistrustors’ responses explaining their lack of social trust, there was a primacy given to negative events observed in media rather than personal experiences, indicating an interaction between the negativity and confirmation biases in mistrust’s stability.

Additional Analyses

This article has focused on theorizing on the role of early socialization and cognitive biases in the formation and stability of social trust from the results of analyses of the 40 Families interview transcripts. However, whereas trustors rooted their worldview in early experiences and expressed more interest in the activities theorized to build social trust than the mistrustors, it is difficult to rule out that this is not simply due to trustors in the sample having higher educations and incomes. As can be seen in Table 1, there is a greater proportion of trustors with high incomes and higher levels of education than mistrustors in the sample. It may be that the trustors in the sample just have more time and money that provides the bandwidth for them to engage in these activities. That is, it could be that despite trustors’ recollections of the importance of their early socialization in shaping their views and behaviors, it is their current socioeconomic status driving the results. Therefore, in an effort to determine which explanation is more likely for the differences in these qualitative data, I turn to statistical analyses using nationally representative data.

To test this possibility, I fit a series of logit models using the Science of Generosity’s nationally representative survey on prosocial attitudes and giving behaviors (see Appendix Item A1 for more details on the data and methodology). This is the nationally representative survey from which the 40 Families Study interviewees were drawn. In these models, I predict self-reported giving financially to charity and volunteering in the last 12 months and desire to volunteer more, the same, or less than one currently does in the future by social trust. I control for household income, education, age, and gender (see Tables A3–A5 in the Appendix for log odds). I interpret the results by testing whether differences in the predicted probabilities of the outcomes between high and low trustors are significantly different using postestimation Wald tests.

The probability that low trustors responded that they did not volunteer at all in the last 12 months is .53, whereas for high trustors, it is .39 (difference = .15, p < .001). A similar pattern holds for giving financially. The probability that low trustors reported giving money to charity in the last 12 months is .53, whereas for high trustors, it is .63 (difference = .10, p < .01). This difference in financial giving holds when accounting for high incomes. Low trustors with household incomes at the 90th percentile of the sample had a probability of giving money in the last 12 months of .63, and for high trustors with the same incomes, it is .72 (difference = .09, p < .01). These differences hold not just for self-reported giving of time and money but also low and high trustors’ desire to give more or less of their time. Low trustors’ probability of answering they desire to volunteer less in the future is .06, whereas for high trustors, it is .03 (difference = .03, p < .05). For the desire to volunteer more in the future, low trustors’ probability is .33, and for high trustors, it is .39 (difference = .06, p < .10).

These results suggest that the lower levels of participation in the kinds of behaviors likely to build social trust is not just a matter of trustors having higher levels of education and incomes than mistrustors. Rather, in these nationally representative data, low trustors not only were less likely to self-report giving of their time and money, but they were also more likely to say they would like to give less of their time than they currently do than trustors.