GoodWork Paper 46: Is Trust on the Wane? It May Depend on Where You Live

Author(s): Katie Davis

Editor(s): Howard Gardner, Series Editor

Media: Paper

Description: The purpose of the present study was to replicate, with a different population, an earlier investigation that posed a series of trust dilemmas to subjects. The trust dilemmas were structured in such a way as to elicit the trust conceptions, or mental models, used by individuals when deciding whom or what to trust. In this paper, I compare the results of the previous study, which included a sample of affluent subjects residing in a suburb near Philadelphia, with the results of the present study, which consisted of a sample of high school students attending an inner city public high school in Boston. I identify similarities between the two groups of subjects, including the proclivity to trust individuals with a recognized professional status, such as a journalist employed by a reputable newspaper. I also note a number of differences between the two groups, including higher levels of trust in celebrities among the high school students in Boston compared to the young adults living near Philadelphia. A number of the mental models of trust identified in the previous study also emerged in the present study. However, several new ones were identified, such as the “newsy-ness” model, which involves subjects‘ reliance on specific elements of format and presentation that act as signalers of trust.