For Kate, it’s more than a feeling. Two years ago she was a traumatized victim, unable to work, sleep, eat, or be alone, even in her own home. Today she’s the spokesperson for the national movement of outraged air travelers, named one of the nation’s 25 Most Influential Executive Women in Travel by Forbes in 2008. Once too terrified to travel, Kate has organized events in every major city, founded a rock group called The Toasted Heads (whose signature tune is a version of “We Gotta Get Outta This Place,” suitable for singing while stranded on a plane), and stormed the halls of Congress on a regular basis.
“This cause gave me a purpose for living that’s so exciting,” Kate says. “I wake up and jump out of bed to get started every day. I’ve never felt better.”
Kate pauses. When she speaks again, her voice is somber. “And it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the horrifying events of the past.”
AMERICA’S TRUST FALL
Jeremy Adam Smith and Pamela Paxton
“TRUST NO ONE.”
That was the slogan of the TV series The X-Files, which followed two FBI agents in their quest to uncover “the truth” about a government conspiracy. Perhaps the most defining series of the 1990s, The X-Files touched a cultural nerve and captured a mood of growing distrust in America.
Since the series ended in 2002, however, our trust in each other has declined even further, despite a brief rebound after September 11. The mood of cynicism and distrust captured by The X-Files in the ’90s seems just as relevant today—indeed, a new X-Files movie was released in 2008, and a Leonardo DiCaprio movie released the following month took the slogan one step further: “Trust no one. Deceive everyone.” The decline or absence of trust also figures prominently in more recent hit TV series like Mad Men, Survivor, and The Sopranos. In fact, “Trust no one” has essentially served as Americans’ motto over the last two generations: For 40 years—the years of Vietnam, Watergate, junk bonds, Monica Lewinsky, Enron, the Catholic Church sex scandals, and the Iraq war—our trust in each other has been dropping steadily, while trust in many institutions has been seriously shaken in response to scandals.
This trend is documented in a variety of national surveys. The General Social Survey, a periodic assessment of Americans’ moods and values, shows a 10-point decline from 1976 to 2006 in the number of Americans who believe that other people can generally be trusted. The General Social Survey also shows declines in trust in our institutions, although these declines are often closely linked to specific events. From the 1970s to today, trust has declined in the press (from 24 percent to 11 percent), education (from 36 percent to 28 percent), banks (from 35 percent to 31 percent), corporations (from 26 percent to 17 percent), and even organized religion (from 35 percent to 25 percent). And Gallup’s annual Governance survey shows that trust in the government is even lower today than it was during the Watergate era, when the Nixon administration had been caught engaging in criminal acts. It’s no wonder popular culture is so preoccupied with questions of trust.
But research on trust isn’t all doom and gloom; it also offers reason for hope. A growing body of research hints that humans are hardwired to trust. Indeed, a closer examination of surveys shows that trust is resilient: major events can stoke our trust in institutions, just as other events can inhibit them. The science of trust suggests that humans want to trust, even need to trust, but they won’t trust blindly or foolishly. They need solid evidence that their trust is warranted. Using this research as a guide, we can begin to understand why trust has been declining, and how we might rebuild it.
WHY TRUST MATTERS
Trust is an intrinsic part of human nature—the foundation of healthy psychological development, established in the bond between infant and caregiver, a process facilitated by the hormone oxytocin.
Trust is most simply defined as the expectation that other people’s future actions will safeguard our interests. It is the magic ingredient that makes social life possible. We trust others when we take a chance, yielding them some control over our money, secrets, safety, or other things we value.
People trust other people when they hire a babysitter, drive their cars, or leave the house unarmed. And we must also trust large organizations, like schools and businesses, for modern society to function. People trust institutions when they dial 911, take prescription medicines, and deposit money in the bank. Without trust, we would be paralyzed, and social life would grind to a halt.
When honored, trust promotes feelings of goodwill between individuals, which in turn benefits community. Researchers Robert Sampson, Steve Raudenbush, and Felton Earls have shown, in a study based on interviews with thousands of people across hundreds of Chicago neighborhoods, that, other things being equal, neighborhoods where residents trust one another have less violence than those where neighbors are suspicious of one another. A 2008 Pew Research Center study discovered that in nations where “trust is high, crime and corruption are low.”
Trust helps the economy. Economists Armin Falk and Michael Kosfeld have shown that when performing tasks for others, an atmosphere of distrust hurts individuals’ motivation and accomplishments and probably increases the cost of doing business. Other research by Stephen Knack and Philip Keefer has found that countries whose citizens trust each other experience stronger economic growth.
Trust is also essential to democracy, where people must be willing to place political power in the hands of their elected representatives and fellow citizens. Without trust, individuals would be unwilling to relinquish political power to those with opposing viewpoints, even for a short time. They would not believe that others will follow the rules and procedures of governance or voluntarily hand over power after losing an election. If that trust declines, so does democracy.
Community, economy, democracy: once we recognize the role of trust in each of them, we can appreciate why declines in trust can be so damaging to society.
WHAT DRIVES MISTRUST?
From that perspective, falling levels of trust are an ominous sign for American society. But why has trust been declining in the United States for so long?
Some researchers, such as Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam, have argued that this rise of distrust reflects profound generational shifts. Americans born roughly between 1910 and 1940 were a particularly civic and trusting generation, these researchers claim, forged in the crises of the Great Depression and World War II—crises that required people to rely on one another and band together. Government dealt with these crises effectively through New Deal programs and military victory over the Axis powers, winning the confidence of its citizens.
That generation is now dying out, replaced by younger people who, according to this theory, are progressively less trusting (starting with baby boomers, whose slogan allegedly was, “Don’t trust anyone over 30”). In fact, a series of focus groups, conducted in 2001 by Harvard University’s GoodWorks Project, revealed an “overwhelming” distrust of politicians, the political process, and the media among the teenagers they interviewed. This generational decline implies that America’s waning trust in others will not easily recover.