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Rethinking the Classic Social Trust Question Wording
Anna Brown Juliana Horowitz
Associate Director, Research Research Associate
July 10, 2019
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Trust Question Wording Anna Brown Research Associate Juliana - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Trust Question Wording Anna Brown Research Associate Juliana - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Rethinking the Classic Social Trust Question Wording Anna Brown Research Associate Juliana Horowitz Associate Director, Research The Question Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you cant be too
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Reach
- General Social Survey
- Pew Research Center
- National Bureau of Economic Research
- Associated Press
- Harvard University
- Gallup
- The Washington Post
- International Monetary Fund
- The Atlantic
- The New York Times
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International Comparisons
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The Trend
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45 36 32 42 38 35 32 36 33 32 36 37 43 42 36 52 57 61 55 53 58 60 56 57 62 60 59 56 58 64 20 40 60 80 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017
You can't be too careful in dealing with people Most people can be trusted
% 2018
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Motivation
Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?
- Not mutually exclusive
- What concept is it really measuring? Trust or caution?
- Who are “most people”?
- Trust them with what?
- Trust them how much?
- Are different demographic groups answering in different ways?
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Experiment Methodology
- Respondents were randomly assigned to one of the question variations (about
n=1,250 for each question)
- Embedded in Wave 32 of American Trends Panel
- Conducted Feb. 26-Mar. 11, 2018 among 6,251 U.S. adults
- Nationally representative online survey
- Margin of error of plus/minus 1.9 percentage points for total sample
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The Experiment
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(Randomized response options) (Randomized response options)
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The Experiment
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(Randomized 0 comes first/ 10 comes first)
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36 64
Most people can be trusted You can't be too careful in dealing with people
Generally speaking, would you say that …
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57 43
Most people can be trusted Most people cannot be trusted
Generally speaking, would you say that ...
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57 42
Most people can be trusted to do the right thing Most people cannot be trusted to do the right thing
Generally speaking, would you say that ...
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6 56 32 6
A fair amount A great deal Not too much Not at all
Generally speaking, would you say you can trust most people ...
Net 62% Net 38%
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41 42 17
4-6 7-10 (Can be trusted completely) 0-3 (Can’t be trusted at all) Think of a scale from 0 to 10 where 0 means you think most people can’t be trusted at all and 10 means you think most people can be trusted completely. Where would you place yourself? On a scale of 0 to 10, I think most people… Mean: 5.73 Median: 6.00
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Findings
% saying …
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62 57 57 54 41 36 Most people can be trusted (vs. can't be too careful) Most people can be trusted (vs. most people cannot be trusted) 7-10 on 0-10 trust scale Can trust most people a great deal/fair amount Most people can be trusted to do the right thing 6-10 on 0-10 trust scale
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Findings
% of men/women saying …
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42 57 31 56 Men Women Most people can be trusted (vs. can't be too careful) Most people can be trusted (vs. most people cannot be trusted)
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Findings
% of whites/nonwhites saying …
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42 63 25 44 White Nonwhite Most people can be trusted (vs. can't be too careful) Most people can be trusted (vs. most people cannot be trusted)
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Findings
- Older, more educated and higher income respondents tend to be more trusting
– regardless of question wording
- No notable differences by political party
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Validity
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Experime eriment ntal al condition dition Correlat atio ion n coeffici icien ent t w/ trust t in neighb hbor
- r
Most people can be trusted to do the right thing .287 Can trust most people a great deal/fair amount/not too much/not at all .281 0-10 trust scale .207 Most people can be trusted (vs. can't be too careful) .166 Most people can be trusted (vs. most people cannot be trusted) .106
Validity
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Going Forward
- Results suggest the classic question wording may conflate trust and caution
- The other 4 questions perform better on some measures, though the scales can
be difficult to interpret
- Still, there is always value in the trend
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Anna Brown
Research Associate
abrown@pewresearch.org