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. 2020 Sep 11;15(9):e0237934.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0237934. eCollection 2020.

Enhancing feelings of security: How institutional trust promotes interpersonal trust

Giuliana Spadaro  1 , Katharina Gangl  2   3 , Jan-Willem Van Prooijen  1   4 , Paul A M Van Lange  1 , Cristina O Mosso  5
Affiliations

Enhancing feelings of security: How institutional trust promotes interpersonal trust

Giuliana Spadaro et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Interpersonal trust is an important source of social and economic development. Over decades, researchers debated the question whether and how public institutions influence interpersonal trust, making this relationship a much-discussed issue for scientific debate. However, experimental and behavioral data and insights on this relationship and the underlying psychological processes are rare and often inconsistent. The present set of studies tests a model which proposes that institutional trust indirectly affects trust among unrelated strangers by enhancing individuals' feelings of security. Study 1 (survey on trust in a broad spectrum of state institutions), Study 2 (nationally representative data from 16 countries), and Study 3 (experimental manipulation of institutional trust) provide convergent support for this hypothesis. Also, the results show that the effect remains consistent even after controlling for individual dispositions linked to interpersonal and institutional trust (Study 1 and 3) and country level indicators of institutional performance (Study 2). Taken together, these findings inform and contribute to the debate about the relationship between institutions and interpersonal trust by showing that when institutions are trusted, they increase feelings of security, and therefore promote interpersonal trust among strangers.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The model: Institutional trust as a predictor of interpersonal trust (trusting beliefs and subsequent behavior) via feelings of security.
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Grants and funding

The research was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF; project 24863-G1) awarded to KG. The funding source contributed to proofreading of an earlier version of the manuscript.