Trust and us

By almost every measure, trust is on the decline in America.

The reason that’s troubling is because by almost every analysis, trust is linked to social progress, productivity and prosperity.

Institutional trust is necessary in large societies for systems to function properly. Individual trust is essential in forming close-knit communities and neighborhoods.

In both instances, we are on average less trustworthy than we used to be as a nation.

Trust in government is hovering at historically low levels-but only in terms of survey data, which doesn’t extend further back than the late 1950s.

General mistrust of government is as old as governance itself, and rightly so. Even among the founders, who were higher-minded about the institution than the rest of the world, most vigorously distrusted centralized political power.

Indeed, the centerpiece of U.S. constitutionalism is the check-and balance system that assumes misbehavior among officials entrusted with power, and provides means to prevent or stymie it.

I could fill a column with quotes from American statesmen encouraging citizens to beware of trusting government too much.

“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree,” James Madison said during a speech at the Constitutional Convention in July 1787.

“In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution,” Thomas Jefferson wrote as part of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.

Their admonitions notwithstanding, the Pew Research Center has tracked trust and distrust in government for half a century, and ironically the starting and ending measure for each have swapped places.

In 1958 the American National Election Study first asked the question in a survey of citizens: “How much of the time do you trust the government in Washington?”

A strong 73 percent responded “almost always” or “most of the time.”

When surveyed in January 2013, an identical 73 percent said they trust the governmental goings-on in Washington only some of the time or never. Only 26 percent said they trust government to behave properly most or all of the time.

I subscribe to the framers’ beliefs that mistrust of government is not altogether unhealthy, especially given its continuing record of scandal and corruption.

As might be expected, the line of intersection between waning trust and escalating distrust occurred in the mid-1970s, just after President Richard Nixon’s resignation.

But even if government ought to be on a short trust leash, other aspects of American life have traditionally warranted and received high levels of trust, and yet are experiencing disturbing downturns.

The biggest loser is the banking system, which was trusted by nearly 50 percent of the people in 2002 but only 23 percent in 2011. Trust is down by smaller margins in television news, police and public education, too.

Trust varies by age groups in surprising ways. Younger people view others with a less trusting eye in general. In a 2012 study, only 29 percent of people ages 18-29 said most people could be trusted, compared with 37 percent of all respondents who thought so. Younger people are less trusting of neighbors, but are on the whole more trusting of government (though less trusting of corporations) than people age 50 and above.

Eroding trust isn’t just a study in psychology. Researchers and scientists have linked high levels of trust to a number of positive social outcomes, including more economic output and less crime.

Societies with lower trust levels tend to experience higher consumption of resources for litigation and regulation, and less investment in innovation.

Trust is a little like reputation, easier lost than regained. And while some erosion is the direct result of betrayals or misconduct, some is simply a by-product of social changes that aren’t likely to go away.

Lifestyle habits and activities that build trust have been displaced as society migrates toward urbanization and its associated technologies. One reason younger people don’t trust neighbors as much as their grandparents did is because they don’t know their neighbors as well.

Kids don’t run ramshackle across neighborhoods like they used to. The front-porch seat to the neighborhood show has been replaced by the back patio focus, where kids and friends now tend to congregate. With dual-income families becoming the norm, neighborhoods are simply emptier during the day, too.

Fear of strangers is exacerbated, too, by both an explosion of TV coverage of criminal news stories and crime shows, and an increased isolationism caused by time spent on the Internet.

Today’s youth, particularly, are measurably more isolated than just a couple of generations prior.

Anything that reduces human interaction can have a debilitating effect on trust, which requires people having contact with other people.

Membership in traditionally strong trust-building groups and activities has dwindled among young people, and the contributing elements-texting, online activities, overexposure to electronic media, etc.-appear to be here to stay.

Restoring trust first requires recognizing the problem, which is particularly important at the institutional and governmental level. A higher standard of accountability becomes an imperative if trust trends are to be reversed.

That’s a tall order in today’s political environment.

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Dana Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.