Do Superordinate Identification and Temporal/Social Comparisons Independently Predict Citizens' System Trust? Evidence From a 40-Nation Survey.
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ABSTRACT: Do superordinate in-group bias as well as temporal and social comparisons offer standalone explanations for system justification? We addressed this question using the latest World Value Survey (7th Wave), combining the responses of 55,721 participants from 40 different nations. Results from a random slope multilevel model showed that superordinate (national) identification, temporal comparison (i.e., the outcomes of an individual relative to those of his/her parents at different time points), and social comparison (based on income levels) were independent and positive predictors of system justification. Specifically, system justification increased when national identification was high, when income increased (i.e., the socioeconomic comparison was positive), and when the outcomes of citizens improved relative to the outcomes of their parents at relevant time points (i.e., the temporal comparison was positive). Incidentally, we also observed an interaction between national identification and temporal comparison (but not with social comparison), indicating that positive temporal comparison seemed to have a reduced effect (but still significant) for highly identified citizens. These results are supportive of the social identity approach to system justification and suggest that support for societal systems is a positive function of people's personal and group interests.
Project description:Social trust and income are associated both within and across countries, such that higher income typically correlates with increased trust. While this correlation is well-documented, the psychological mechanisms sustaining this relationship remain poorly understood. One plausible candidate is people's temporal discounting: on the one hand, trust has a strong time component-it exposes the individual to immediate costs in exchange of uncertain and delayed benefits; on the other hand, temporal discounting is robustly influenced by income. The goal of our studies was to test whether temporal discounting mediates the relationship between income and trust and whether experimentally manipulating perceived income has a downstream impact on temporal discounting and trust. To do so, participants who underestimated their relative income position received information about their true position in the income distribution in order to correct their misperception. Our results indicate that temporal discounting partially mediates the effect of income on social trust in a pre-registered online study on British participants (N = 855). However, receiving a positive information shock on one's income position had no impact on either temporal discounting or social trust. In a second pre-registered study, we replicated the finding that temporal discounting partially mediates the effect of income on social trust in a representative sample of the British population (N = 1130).
Project description:As COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out across the world, there are growing concerns about the roles that trust, belief in conspiracy theories, and spread of misinformation through social media play in impacting vaccine hesitancy. We use a nationally representative survey of 1476 adults in the UK between 12 and 18 December 2020, along with 5 focus groups conducted during the same period. Trust is a core predictor, with distrust in vaccines in general and mistrust in government raising vaccine hesitancy. Trust in health institutions and experts and perceived personal threat are vital, with focus groups revealing that COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is driven by a misunderstanding of herd immunity as providing protection, fear of rapid vaccine development and side effects, and beliefs that the virus is man-made and used for population control. In particular, those who obtain information from relatively unregulated social media sources-such as YouTube-that have recommendations tailored by watch history, and who hold general conspiratorial beliefs, are less willing to be vaccinated. Since an increasing number of individuals use social media for gathering health information, interventions require action from governments, health officials, and social media companies. More attention needs to be devoted to helping people understand their own risks, unpacking complex concepts, and filling knowledge voids.
Project description:The relationships between the anatomical representation of semantic knowledge in the human brain and the timing of neurophysiological mechanisms involved in manipulating such information remain unclear. This is the case for superordinate semantic categorization-the extraction of general features shared by broad classes of exemplars (e.g., living vs. non-living semantic categories). We proposed that, because of the abstract nature of this information, input from diverse input modalities (visual or auditory, lexical or non-lexical) should converge and be processed in the same regions of the brain, at similar time scales during superordinate categorization-specifically in a network of heteromodal regions, and late in the course of the categorization process. In order to test this hypothesis, we utilized electroencephalography and event related potentials (EEG/ERP) with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize subjects' responses as they made superordinate categorical decisions (living vs. non-living) about objects presented as visual pictures or auditory words. Our results reveal that, consistent with our hypothesis, during the course of superordinate categorization, information provided by these diverse inputs appears to converge in both time and space: fMRI showed that heteromodal areas of the parietal and temporal cortices are active during categorization of both classes of stimuli. The ERP results suggest that superordinate categorization is reflected as a late positive component (LPC) with a parietal distribution and long latencies for both stimulus types. Within the areas and times in which modality independent responses were identified, some differences between living and non-living categories were observed, with a more widespread spatial extent and longer latency responses for categorization of non-living items.
Project description:We study the causal relationship between social and political trust in a low trust society, a setting where this topic has received very little attention. We focus on contemporary Chile, a relatively consolidated new democracy lacking many of the conditions that fosters trust such as high socioeconomic equality, weak social divisions, or universal welfare policies. Our empirical analysis is based on a 4-wave panel survey applied to a representative sample of 2000 Chilean adults interviewed face to face each year between 2016 and 2019. Based on statistical models with varying specifications and assumptions, we find support for the institutionalist view that claims that political trust exercises a positive influence over social trust. However, contrary to recent findings for some European democracies (Sønderskov & Dinesen 2016, Seifert 2018), we also find that social trust positively affects political trust. Our results suggest that the positive relationship between both types of trust travels to different political settings, and that there is no minimum threshold required in levels of trust for this relationship to emerge.
Project description:How does lacking vs. possessing power in a social exchange affect people's trust in their exchange partner? An answer to this question has broad implications for a number of exchange settings in which dependence plays an important role. Here, we report on a series of experiments in which we manipulated participants' power position in terms of structural dependence and observed their trust perceptions and behaviors. Over a variety of different experimental paradigms and measures, we find that more powerful actors place less trust in others than less powerful actors do. Our results contradict predictions by rational actor models, which assume that low-power individuals are able to anticipate that a more powerful exchange partner will place little value on the relationship with them, thus tends to behave opportunistically, and consequently cannot be trusted. Conversely, our results support predictions by motivated cognition theory, which posits that low-power individuals want their exchange partner to be trustworthy and then act according to that desire. Mediation analyses show that, consistent with the motivated cognition account, having low power increases individuals' hope and, in turn, their perceptions of their exchange partners' benevolence, which ultimately leads them to trust.
Project description:Cognitive adaptation in the elderly and the motivated use of temporal and social comparisons set the conceptual frame for the present study. Three research questions were investigated in a sample of 2.129 persons aged between 50 and 90 years. First, the direction of social and temporal comparisons for three domains (physical fitness, mental fitness, psychological resilience) was studied, and findings did show that especially lateral followed by upward comparisons were most frequent under both perspectives; downward comparisons clearly showed the least frequency. Second, the distribution of comparison directions was investigated across four age groups. These analyses showed that upward comparisons increased and lateral comparisons decreased across age groups; differential results were observed for the domains under consideration. Third, the relation between social and temporal comparisons and self-esteem was studied. Results obtained here indicated a motivated use of specific comparison directions since downward social comparisons and upward temporal comparisons were most frequent in persons with low self-esteem. Taken together, the study underlines the different functions of social and temporal comparisons in adulthood and old age; it indicates a predominant need for consensus and consistency, and it highlights the importance of self-esteem in cognitive adaptation.
Project description:While pandemic containment measures benefit public health, they may jeopardize the social structure of society. We hypothesize that lockdowns and prolonged social distancing measures hinder social support and invite norm violations, eroding social trust. We conducted a pre-registered pre-post study on a representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 2377; participation rate = 88.8%), measuring social trust reported by the same individuals before and after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that social trust in the Netherlands suddenly dropped from its historically stable level, reaching one of its lowest points on record. The decline was stronger among residents belonging to official high-risk categories, especially if they perceived themselves as likely to become infected. Individuals who more strongly agreed with self-isolation norms or did not perceive a widespread compliance or agreement with such norms also reported a greater loss of trust.
Project description:Dunbar's number is the cognitive limit of an individual to maintain stable relationships with others in his network. It is based on the size of the neocortex of the human brain. On the other hand, trust is one of the major issues for one while selecting members for his social network and the evolution of his social network with time. Trust and Dunbar's number are interconnected in the case of one's stable social network. Trust needs time to be built after several social interactions, intimacy, etc. In this paper, we try to provide answers to the following important questions related to social networks: (i) Do trust levels remain the same for individuals from one's perspective in his social network when the network size increases? (ii) What is the relation between the power-law exponent α and the trust cutoff? (iii) Do trust levels help to diffuse information quickly or vice versa to reach Dunbar's number 150 along with hierarchy layers of 5, 15, and 50 individuals in networks of different sizes? We find that there is a requirement for trust levels to increase among the same individuals in one's social network if the size of the network increases. As a relation between the power-law exponent α and the trust cutoff, it is found that α∝ 1/(trust cutoff). Moreover, we also find that trust levels never help to diffuse information quickly or vice versa to reach Dunbar's number 150, along with hierarchy layers of 5, 15, and 50 individuals in networks of different sizes.
Project description:Background: This paper presents part of a wider research project called TRESCA[1] which aims to develop trust in science through the innovation of communication practices. Connected with the topic of trust in sciences, in terms of the credibility and reliability of scientific information, a part of the project was dedicated to the assessment of the explanatory power of two main elements of communication: audio and video. Particular attention was given to how these two elements relate to the perception of citizens, mediating with the latent imaginaries, emotional charges and value judgements that are the basis of the framing of relevant news, and thus with the ability of people to distinguish between correct and false communication. Methods: To investigate these aspects, an ad hoc workshop was designed and implemented in three European countries with the aim of understanding how people interpret the content of a scientific communication video with particular attention to the role of images and audio. Some probe questions were carefully selected to explore content and latent imaginaries, emotional and critical aspects also related with the trust of the communication. Results: By involving citizens in discussions and innovation efforts, many suggestions and recommendations have been collected. In today's everyday life, where the visual is very widespread, thanks to the ever-growing presence of social media, the power of images can exceed that of audio. Conclusions: Since watching a video without sound can mislead the real content of the message, especially when the source or the speaker aren't recognisable. This can have many repercussions on people's ability to evaluate the truthfulness of a news and, consequently, on the choice to grant trust - or distrust.
Project description:We use data on intergenerational social mobility by neighborhood to examine how social and physical environments beyond concentrated poverty predict children's long-term well-being. First, we examine neighborhoods that are harsh on children's development: those characterized by high levels of violence, incarceration, and lead exposure. Second, we examine potential supportive or offsetting mechanisms that promote children's development, such as informal social control, cohesion among neighbors, and organizational participation. Census tract mobility estimates from linked income tax and Census records are merged with surveys and administrative records in Chicago. We find that exposure to neighborhood violence, incarceration, and lead combine to independently predict poor black boys' later incarceration as adults and lower income rank relative to their parents, and poor black girls' teenage motherhood. Features of neighborhood social organization matter less, but are selectively important. Results for poor whites also show that toxic environments independently predict lower social mobility, as do features of social organization, to a lesser extent. Overall, our measures contribute a 76% relative increase in explained variance for black male incarceration beyond that of concentrated poverty and other standard characteristics, an 18% increase for black male income rank (70% for whites), and a 17% increase for teenage motherhood of black girls (40% for whites).