Institutional Trust as a Factor in Attitudes Toward New Technologies

Abstract

The success of the country's innovative development depends not only on the supply side (production of innovative products), but also on the demand side – the readiness of the population to adopt new technologies. In this article we test two hypotheses using data from representative surveys conducted in 2018 and 2020. The first hypothesis is about a positive relationship between institutional trust (trust in federal, regional and municipal authorities), belief in the security of personal data collected by the state and attitudes towards new technologies (in the field of healthcare and unmanned vehicles). The hypothesis is based on the assumption that the state is perceived as a guarantor of the quality of the institutional environment and the infrastructure used, which are important for ensuring the safety of the introduction and use of new technologies. The second hypothesis is about a negative relationship between institutional trust and attitudes towards medical technologies, which act as a substitute for the functions that a person performs as part of his job duties. It is based on the assumption that in the case of low institutional trust, the population makes an increased demand for technologies that can replace the activities of a person working in a state system that they do not trust. The results show that, regardless of the type of technologies considered, higher levels of institutional trust and confidence in the security of personal data collected by the state is positively related with attitudes toward new technologies. The results obtained are important for building institutional and informational measures aimed at increasing the acceptance of new technologies by the population. It can also be important to customize measures for specific socio-demographic groups of the population, taking into account the level of institutional trust in the group.