Trusting Only Whom You Know, Knowing Only Whom You Trust: The Joint Impact of Social Capital and Trust on Happiness in CEE Countries

Abstract

We investigate the extent to which bridging and bonding social capital as well as social trust and individuals' earnings interdependently affect self-reported happiness. The study is based on cross-sectional World Values Survey 2000 data on individuals from eight Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs). We identify high risk of regressor endogeneity and omitted variables bias in happiness regressions, and eliminate them using instrumental variables and an appropriate set of controls. The endogeneity issue has been generally overlooked in earlier studies. Our study therefore provides novel implications for the general discussion on the causal relationships between the five considered variables. Our results are also discussed in the specific context of socio-economic convergence processes currently taking place in CEECs.

Trust and Tolerance across the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparative Perspective on the Impact of the Arab Uprisings

“…However, the results do not resemble a picture of immediate decreasing trust in democratic transition countries (Expectation 2), as was expected based on the CEE literature (e.g. Growiec & Growiec, 2014;Murray, 2008). It was in countries that have seen major or minor institutional democratic reformsor that moved towards democracy through relatively democratic elections-where political trust at first increased.…”

“…The economic and cultural situation both in a country and in intermediary societal groups are said to socialize generations into certain base levels of trust and tolerance, particularly at a young age (Easton, 1975;Gibson, 2009;Inglehart, 1999). In this vein, Growiec and Growiec (2014), for instance, argue that a way out of the low-trust trap in the transitional CEE countries is economic modernization. Logically, this approach sees generational replacement as an important driver of (slow gradual) change (see Gibson, 2009;Inglehart, 1997;Mishler & Rose 2001;Zmerli & Hooghe, 2011).…”

“…Chanley, 2002;Davis & Silver, 2004;Gross, Aday, & Brewer, 2004;Skitka, Bauman, & Mullen, 2004). However, studies on the transition to democracy in CEE suggest that uncertainty inhibits any increase in political-institutional trust in a newly less-authoritarian context, though the transition might actually strengthen trust in informal networks as compensation (see Growiec & Growiec, 2014;Marinova, 2011;Murray, 2008;Raiser et al, 2004). These results suggest that political shocks have no single unequivocal effect; the impact of such events depends on the characteristics of the shock and context.…”

“…political events) and that our knowledge on this is limited. So while we have learned from (empirically supported) rational-choice theories that a country's political and economic developments, such as economic performance, affect its citizens' attitudes (Easton, 1975;Gibson, 2009;Hutchison & Gibler, 2007;Rose & Mishler, 2011), and we know from sociological and classic institutionalism that religio-cultural differences, economic processes, and political institutional arrangements socialize generations in certain base levels of trust and tolerance (Growiec & Growiec, 2014;Inglehart, 1997;Lühiste, 2006), it is less clear how and under which conditions shocks, like the uprisings, actually influence trust and tolerance.…”

The moderating role of kindness on the relation between trust and happiness

“…These features can be observed in the happiest countries in the world, such as Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland (Helliwell et al 2016). The role of trust in shaping a happy nation seems to be particularly significant, as it affects many other determinants of happiness such as positive attitudes towards institutions and other people, tolerance, frequency of experiencing positive emotions, and quality of social relations (Growiec and Growiec 2014;Kroll 2008;Rothstein and Uslaner 2005). Some scholars even claim that global well-being depends on the development of social trust in all nations (Wright 2000).…”