Developmental Patterns of Social Trust Between Early and Late Adolescence: Age and School Climate Effects

Abstract

Social trust (i.e., beliefs that people are generally fair and trustworthy) is important to the functioning of democracies and trend studies show it has declined. We test hypotheses concerning the development of these beliefs in adolescence. Based on surveys of 1535 adolescents collected over two years, we find that middle and late adolescents had significantly lower levels of trust than early adolescents and that these beliefs became more stable and less related to interpersonal trust between early and late adolescence. Results of multiple group SEMs revealed that, regardless of age, adolescents' reports that a strong sense of student solidarity characterized their school significantly increased ST at T2, controlling for levels at T1, and opportunities to exchange perspectives with fellow students increased ST at T2 indirectly, through feelings of student solidarity. The study points to the role of schools in nurturing the democratic dispositions of younger generations.Social trust reflects an individual's positive view of humanity, the belief that people generally treat others fairly rather than try to maximize their own gain at others' expense. Such views of humanity are important foundations for democratic societies because they are positively associated with cooperation, tolerance, volunteering, giving to charity, and participation in public affairs (Putnam, 2000; Uslaner, 2000). Individuals with high levels of social trust assume that even people who are different from them are part of their moral community and that they bear some responsibility for the welfare of these "others" (Flanagan, Gill, & Gallay, 2005;Uslaner, 2002).Scholarly interest in social trust has increased of late due to concerns that it has declined. Trends over the past thirty years show that younger generations today also are less likely than their elders and than earlier cohorts of youth to have faith in humanity, i.e., to feel that "people in general" can be trusted (Pew Research Center, 2007;Rahn & Transue, 1998;Smith, 2005). Our understanding of social trust and its correlates is based primarily on studies of adults and there is some evidence that these beliefs are rather stable in adulthood. For example, one national longitudinal study found that the level of social trust expressed by a high-school senior in 1965 was highly predictive of the faith in humanity s/he reported in his/her mid thirties (Damico, Conway, & Damico, 2000;Jennings & Stoker, 2002;Stolle & Hooghe, 2003;Uslaner, 2002).It seems reasonable to assume that the foundations of our faith in humanity are established prior to adulthood. Yet, there have been no studies of the developmental correlates of social NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript trust. However, research on early adolescents' lay theories about humanity is relevant. Dweck, Levy, and their colleagues have identified individual differences in early adolescents' lay theories about humanity with some youth adopting a fixed or entity view and others a view that pe...

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