1
Who Tends to Trust in Australia?
An Empirical Analysis of Survey Data
Dr Xianbi Huang
Lecturer in Sociology
School of Social Sciences
La Trobe University
Email: [email protected]
Abstract: (121 words)
This article defines trust as confidence or belief in the reliability of individuals or institutions, and
conducts an empirical investigation into social trust and political trust in Australia by drawing on
evidence from the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA). The findings show that
individuals’ objective attainment (e.g., education, occupation and income), subjective evaluation of
status, and social network resources are significantly associated with social trust and political trust.
Respondents who have a university degree, rank their own status highly, and have access to helpers’
favour or large social networks are more likely to trust people in general as well as Members of
Parliament and public officials. Moreover, social trust and political trust are positively associated to
a modest extent.
Key words: Social trust, political trust, personal success, social networks, Australia
Word count: 3,302
2
Who Tends to Trust in Australia?: An Empirical Analysis of Survey Data
Introduction
As “one of the most important synthetic forces within society” (Simmel 1950: 326), trust has
stimulated scholarly interest from multiple disciplines such as sociology, economics, politics,
psychology, and anthropology. It has been widely recognised that trust contributes to economic
growth, social integration, co-operation and harmony, democratic stability and development,
personal life satisfaction, good health and longevity (Delhey and Newton 2003), and that without
the requisite level of trust, human interactions that constitute social life would not be possible
(Welch et al. 2005). Although the concept of trust is tricky and multifaceted, it can be classified in
different dimensions such as rational-based vs. norm-driven and generalised vs. particularised trust
(Nannestad 2008). The most theoretically developed concepts of trust, to name a few, include
“encapsulated interest” (Hardin 2006), “social intelligence” (Yamagishi 2001), and “moralistic”
(Uslaner 2002). While the first two concepts reflect rational-based and particularised trust, the third
embodies norm-driven and generalised trust; and to some extent all stress the relational nature of
trust. However, in the literature of trust there has been “a wide gap between much of the theoretical
and conceptual work on trust and the bulk of empirical studies” (Nannestad 2008: 415). Either
through surveys or experiments, empirical research was “seldom designed to distinguish between
different concepts of trust and their implications” (Nannestad 2008: 416).
This article does not intend to go into detail about various subtleties of the concept of trust;
rather, it aims to conduct an empirical investigation into trust in the Australian context by drawing
on evidence from the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA). For conceptual
simplicity, trust is defined as confidence or belief in the reliability of individuals or institutions,
which is close to the concepts within previous research (Giddens 1990; Delhey and Newton 2003;
Secor and O’Loughlin 2005). This study explores the origins of two main types of trust, social trust
(i.e., interpersonal trust) and political trust (i.e., trust in politicians or public institutions), and
attempts to find out what kinds of people are more likely to have higher levels of social trust and
3
political trust as well as whether social trust and political trust are significantly associated. In the
following sections, I first review relevant theoretical perspectives and then propose propositions on
the associations between individual socioeconomic characteristics and trust. Next, I describe
variables and measures. Finally, I summarise findings and provide discussions.
Theoretical Perspectives and Propositions
A review of existing studies reveals that there are two broad schools of thought about the origins of
trust, that is, individual theories and societal theories (Delhey and Newton 2003). The individual
theories tend to regard trust as a kind of individual property that are either associated with
individual core personality traits that are developed through the socialisation process (Erikson 1950;
Allport 1961; Uslaner 1999, 2000), or individual social and demographic features such as gender,
age, education, income and class. By contrast, the societal theories view trust as a property of a
social system and stress the association between trust and social circumstances or organisations
such as social networks, communities, cultures, and institutional contexts (Delhey and Newton
2003). This article adopts a sociological perspective and draws on the findings of previous research
from both schools of thought on the origins of trust. It attempts to explore the role of both personal
success (including objective attainment and subjective status) and social networks in determining
individuals’ trust (Figure 1). Accordingly, relevant propositions are formulated.
[Figure 1 about here]
Individuals’ personal success can be measured or evaluated objectively or subjectively; both
aspects are assumed to be significantly associated with trust that is developed over time through
people’s life experiences. On the one hand, it has been suggested that trust tends to be expressed by
the “winners” in the society, who enjoy advantages in terms of money, higher levels of job and
education (Newton 1999; Whiteley 1999; Borgonovi 2012). Putnam (2000) points out that “havenots” are less trusting than “haves”, probably because the latter receive more honesty and respect
from others. Those with lower socioeconomic status or suffering from poverty, unemployment and
4
social exclusion are inclined to be more distrusting. Education is found to be conducive to
promoting a more open and tolerant society and is strongly associated with greater trust (Borgonovi
2012). On the other hand, there is a close connection between trust, happiness and life satisfaction
(Inglehart 1999; Putnam 2000). Arguably, trust is highly relevant to individuals’ subjective feelings
about their own status. If individuals are happy with what they have earned or attained in the society
(although the earnings or attainment can be low if measured objectively), it is still possible that they
would have a high level of trust. Conversely, even though objective achievement may be high,
individuals are likely to rank their status low and have a lower level of trust if they feel relatively
deprived through the actions of other people. These thoughts thus lead to:
Proposition 1: Individuals’ personal success is likely to be positively associated with their
levels of trust.
Trust is a relational concept and can be understood as a property embedded in the social
relations that occur among people. Welch et al. (2005) define social trust as “the mutually shared
expectation, often expressed as confidence”, and “reciprocally beneficial behaviour” in people’s
interactions with others. It is found that direct participation in social networks of everyday life
matters for social trust (Yamagishi and Yamagishi 1993). Two main mechanisms are assumed to
help explain why individuals who are better positioned in social networks tend to have a higher
level of trust. First, a dense or closed network represents more reciprocal relationships that rely on
and promote trust. People in these dense or closed networks may share more similarities in terms of
their socioeconomic backgrounds, a stronger sense of membership, stronger solidarity, mutual
recognition and obligations, and norms. Coleman (1988) sees network closure as a distinctive
advantage of social capital because it maintains and enhances trust, norms, authority, sanctions and
so on. Second, resources embedded in social networks can be accessed or mobilised for purposive
or expressive actions (Lin 2001), which may be conducive to strengthening trust and reciprocity
among network members. For example, information generated through weakly or loosely tied
networks helps people to find a job (Granovetter 1973). Favour or influence obtained in strongly
5
tied social networks helps job applicants to affect employment processes for their own benefits
(Bian 1997). Advice or emotional support provided by “discussion networks” (Marsden 1987) as
well as varying assistance offered by everyday support networks (e.g., in the community, the
neighbourhood and the workplace) help people to be happier and rely more on each other. In these
terms, a proposition can be developed:
Proposition 2: Individuals’ social network resources are likely to be positively associated with
their levels of trust.
Trust can be differentiated into two main types in contemporary society: social trust
(interpersonal trust) and political trust (trust in political institutions or politicians). It has been
argued that while these two forms of trust are similar in some ways, they are conceptually distinct
(Putnam 2000; Newton 2001). Social trust can be based upon immediate, first-hand experience of
others, whereas political trust is more generally learned indirectly and at a distance, usually through
the media (Newton 2012). However, the relationship between social trust and political trust has not
been clearly revealed in existing studies, with scholars tending to believe that neither form of trust
is merely an individual character trait. Moreover, both social trust and political trust show how
people evaluate the trustworthiness of the world they live in, and this evaluation is affected by
structural and individual factors (Newton 2001; Secor and O’Loughlin 2005). While some research
has found that social trust and political trust vary together, this correlation is only true to a very
modest extent (Bean 2005). Thus, this exploratory study puts forward:
Proposition 3: Social trust and political trust are positively associated with each other, and
both are affected by individuals’ personal success and social networks.
Variables and Measures
Data from AuSSA2007 are used for testing the above propositions. This national survey was carried
out in Australia in 2007 with a sample of 6,666 respondents selected at random from the Australian
Electoral Roll. Structured self-completed questionnaires were mailed back by 2,781 respondents,
6
yielding a response rate of 42 percent. Binary logistic regressions are employed for statistical
modelling. Below I describe variables and present descriptive statistics in Table 1.
Dependent variables
Social trust and political trust are two main concerns in this study. These two concepts are
measured by referring to previous social survey studies.
Social trust. As reviewed by Nannestad (2008), survey-based studies of social trust normally
use as their measurement instrument the trust question: “Generally speaking, would you say that
most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?” This question
has migrated from the American General Social Surveys (GSS) to the World Values Survey (WVS)
and to the European Social Surveys (ESS) and has been used in other surveys as well. The
responses are recorded either on a binary scale (GSS and WVS) or on an 11-point Likert scale
(ESS). In the AuSSA2007 questionnaire, the question about social trust is: “To what extent do you
agree or disagree with the following statements? (1) There are only a few people I can trust
completely; and (2) If you are not careful, other people will take advantage of you”. A 5-point
Likert scale is used, with respondents expected to choose from “Strongly agree”, “Agree”, “Neither
agree nor disagree”, “Disagree”, and “Strongly disagree”. In addition, “Can’t choose” is provided.
In this study, I construct two dummy variables of social trust based on the above items (1) and (2)
respectively, coding “Disagree” and “Strongly disagree” as “1” and the others as “0”. The first
variable is “Most of people can be trusted completely” and the second is “People won’t take
advantage of me”.
Political trust. I construct four variables of political trust. The first dummy variable is about
people’s trust in Members of Parliament (MPs), based on the question: “How much do you agree or
disagree with the statement that people we elect as MPs try to keep the promises they have made
during the elections?”. A 5-point Likert scale is provided for respondents, ranging from “Strongly
agree”, “Agree”, “Neither agree nor disagree”, “Disagree”, “Strongly disagree” to “Can’t choose”.
Answers of “Strongly agree” and “Agree” are coded as “1” and the other items as “0”. Moreover,
7
there are three dummy variables about people’s trust in public servants or officials. Respondents
were asked how much they agree with the statement: “Most public servants can be trusted to do
what is best for the country”. Likewise, a dummy variable is constructed with “Strongly agree” and
“Agree” coded as “1”. Again, with reference to the question: “In your opinion, how often do public
officials deal fairly with people like you?”, I code answers of “Almost always” and “Often” as “1”
and the others including “Occasionally”, “Seldom”, “Almost never” and “Can’t choose” as “0”.
Regarding the question, “Do you think that treatment people get from public officials in Australia
depends on who they know?”, I code “Definitely does”, “Probably does” and “Can’t choose” as “0”
and “Probably does not” and “Definitely does not” as “1”.
Independent variables
Individuals’ objective attainment, subjective status and social network resources are three
main types of factors that are assumed to be associated with the levels of their social trust and
political trust.
In terms of objective attainment, four variables are constructed. “Years of schooling”
(covering years spent in any educational institutions) and “Having a university degree” are
straightforward and measure educational participation and educational attainment respectively. It
can be argued that years of schooling characterise the quantity of education inputs, while a
university qualification measures the quality of the education individuals received (Borgonovi
2012). Occupation is constructed as a dummy variable with “Professionals” and “Managers” coded
as “1” and other occupational categories such as “Technicians and trade workers”, “community and
personal service workers”, “clerical and administrative workers”, “sales workers”, “machinery
operators and drivers” and “labourers” coded as “0”. Finally, income is constructed as a categorical
variable that includes three levels of individuals’ gross annual income ranging from low ($0$36,399) to middle ($36,400-$77,999) to high ($78,000 and above). Low-level income is taken as
the reference category.
8
Subjective status is measured by a continuous variable which is based on the status score a
respondent evaluated himself/herself. The question asks: “In our society there are groups which
tend to be towards the top and groups which tend to be towards the bottom. Below is a scale that
runs from the top to the bottom where the top is 10 and the bottom is 1. Where would you put
yourself on this scale?”.
In terms of social network resources, three variables are constructed: (1) Ability to influence
decisions. The related question is, “Some people because of their job, position in the community or
contacts, are asked by others to help influence important decisions in their favour. What about you?
How often are you asked to help influence important decisions in other people’s favour?” A dummy
variable is constructed by coding “Never” as “0” and the others including “Seldom”,
“Occasionally” and “Often” as “1”. (2) Access to helpers’ favour. Respondents were asked: “Are
there people you could ask to help influence important decisions in your favour?” The answer of
“Nobody” is coded as “0”, while other answers including “a few people”, “some people”, and “a lot
of people” are coded as “1”, indicating that the respondent has access to helpers’ favour when
needed. This is consistent with Lin’s (2001) conceptual work of accessible social capital. (3) Size of
social network (ref. = small). Respondents were asked, “On average, about how many people do
you have contact with in a typical week day, including people you live with?” It is noted that this
kind of contact is on a one-to-one basis, including everyone with whom the respondent chats, talks,
or discusses personal matters (strangers are not included). It can be face-to-face, by telephone, mail,
or via the Internet. I construct a categorical variable based on this question, coding 0-9 persons into
the category “small size”, 10-19 persons into the category “middle size”, and 20 and more persons
into the category “large size”.
Control variables
Gender, age, age squared, marital status, religion, labour force participation, work sector
(public vs. non-public), union membership, place of residency (urban vs. rural), and migrant status
9
are control variables included in statistical models. Due to space constraint, no detailed description
is offered here but their descriptive information is presented in Table 1.
[Table 1 about here]
Findings and Summary
As shown in Table 2, respondents’ objective attainment, subjective status and social network
resources are significantly associated with social trust and political trust to some extent. Models 1
and 2 predict the associations between independent variables and trusting people in general.
Education plays a noticeable role in being positively associated with respondents’ confidence in
“Most people can be trusted” and “People won’t take advantage of me”. In particular, having a
university degree would significantly increase respondents’ odds of trusting people by about 100%150% compared to those without a university degree (odds ratios=2.062 & 2.501). With reference
to low income earners, respondents who had middle or high income tend to have a lower level of
trust (odds ratios=.639 & .586). Subjective status helps increase respondents’ confidence in
responding positively to “Most people can be trusted” and “People won’t take advantage of me”.
The odds ratios are 1.147 and 1.140, showing that the odds of trusting people would be about 14%
higher if a respondent subjectively ranks his/her own status one point higher out of the 10-point
scale. Regarding social network resources, access to helpers’ favour and having a large social
network would significantly increase respondents’ odds of trusting people by about 40-55% (odds
ratios are between 1.415-1.544).
[Table 2 about here]
Models 3 to 6 show the association between independent variables and political trust.
Education (including years of schooling and university degree), having a professional or managerial
occupation, and having access to helpers’ favour are all likely to significantly increase respondents’
trust in terms of “Public officials deal fairly with people”. Subjective status is the only predictor
which has significantly positive associations with all four variables of political trust (all odds ratios
10
are larger than 1), showing that the higher the subjective evaluation of status, the higher the
possibility of trusting MPs and public officials. Interestingly, compared to respondents with a small
social network, those with a large social network tend to disagree that, “the treatment people get
from public officials doesn’t depend on who they know” (odds ratio=.707). In other words, it can be
inferred that the larger the social networks a person has, the more likely that he/she would trust in
the power of “who you know” in dealing with public officials. This implies a negative association
between social network resources and the level of political trust, which differs from Proposition 2.
Therefore, except for the unexpected negative association between income and social trust as
well as that between the large social network and the abovementioned political trust, the overall
findings lend support to propositions 1 and 2 in that individuals’ personal success and social
network resources are inclined to be positively associated with social trust and political trust.
Regarding the effect of control variables, a few points are noteworthy. For instance, men are likely
to be more distrusting than women of people in general but more trusting of MPs or public officials.
Older people are more likely to respond positively to “People won’t take advantage of me” and “the
treatment people get from public officials doesn’t depend on who they know”. Having a religion or
being an urban resident is negatively associated with the belief that “People won’t take advantage of
me”, but is positively associated with a dimension of political trust. Working in the public sector
has a positive association with trust in public officials but not with trust in MPs.
[Table 3 about here]
Finally, the relationship between social trust and political trust is revealed in Table 3. It
demonstrates that these two types of trust are significantly associated to a modest extent. As shown
in Table 2, social trust and political trust share some associated factors in common, such as
education, subjective status and access to helpers’ favour. Hence, Proposition 3 can be supported.
To sum up, the analytical framework proposed in this article has won empirical support in the
Australian context. It shows that individuals’ personal success combined with social network
resources work together to enhance the levels of social trust and political trust. The implication is
11
that both individual and societal theories of trust reviewed earlier have explanatory power under
certain circumstances. However, as an exploratory study, this article has some limitations due to
data constraints. First, similar to other surveys, the 2007 AuSSA data do not provide measures to
distinguish between different concepts of trust and their implications (Nannestad 2008). Second, the
findings indicate associations between independent variables and levels of social trust and political
trust, but do not explain what exact roles that different independent variables play. For example, it
remains unclear through what pathways education operates to increase the levels of trust. Is it
because the better educated are more likely to hold positive views or be tolerant than the poorly
educated, or is it because the better educated are less likely to express their distrusting or intolerant
views even though they hold these views and in reality may not act differently from the poorly
educated (Borgonovi 2012)? To address these issues, qualitative studies such as in-depth interviews
or improved survey design may both help.
References:
Allport, G. (1961) Pattern and Growth in Personality, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Bean, C. (2005) ‘Is There a Crisis of Trust in Australia?’, pp. 122-140 in S. Wilson et al. (ed.)
Australian Social Attitudes: The First Report. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Bian, Y. (1997) ‘Bringing Strong Ties Back In: Indirect Ties, Network Bridges, and Job Searches in
China’, American Sociological Review 62(3): 366-85.
Borgonovi, F. (2012) ‘The Relationship between Education and Levels of Trust and Tolerance in
Europe’, The British Journal of Sociology 63 (1): 146-67.
Coleman, J. (1988) ‘Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital’, The American Journal of
Sociology, 94: S95-S120.
Delhey, J. and K. Newton (2003) ‘Who Trusts?: The Origins of Social Trust in Seven Societies’,
European Societies 5(2): 93-137.
Erikson, E. (1950) Childhood and Society, New York: Norton.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Granovetter, M. (1973) ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 136080.
12
Hardin, R. (2006) Trust. Cambridge: Polity
Inglehart, R. (1999) ‘Trust, Well-being and Democracy’, pp. 88-120 in M. Warren (ed.) Democracy
and Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lin, N. (2001) Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Marsden, P. (1987) ‘Core Discussion Networks of Americans’, American Sociological Review
52(1): 122-31.
Nannestad, P. (2008) ‘What Have We Learned About Generalized Trust, If Anything?’, Annual
Review of Political Science 11:413-36.
Newton, K. (1999) ‘Social Capital and Democracy in Modern Europe’, pp. 3-24 in J. van Deth et al.
(ed.) Social Capital and European Democracy. London: Routledge.
Newton, K. (2001) ‘Trust, Social Capital, Civil Society and Democracy’, International Political
Science Review 22: 201-14.
Newton, K. (2012) ‘Social and Political Trust’, European Social Survey Education Net.
http://essedunet.nsd.uib.no/cms/topics/2/ (retrieved 19 July 2012).
Putnam, Robert (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New
York: Simon and Schuster.
Secor, A. and J. O’Loughlin. (2005) ‘Social and Political Trust in Istanbul and Moscow: A
Comparative Analysis of Individual and Neighbourhood Effects’, Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers 30 (1): 66-82(17).
Simmel, G. (1950) The Sociology of Georg Simmel, translated and edited by Kurt Wolff, Glencoe,
Ill.: Free Press.
Uslaner, E. (1999) ‘Democracy and social capital’, pp. 121-50 in M. Warren (ed.) Democracy and
Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Uslaner, E. (2000) ‘Producing and Consuming Trust’, Political Science Quarterly 115(4): 569-90.
Uslaner, E. (2002) The Moral Foundations of Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Welch, M. et al. (2005) ‘Determinants and Consequences of Social Trust’, Sociological Inquiry
75(4): 453-73.
Whiteley, P. (1999) ‘The Origins of Social Capital’, pp. 25-44 in J. van Deth et al. (ed.) Social
Capital and European Democracy. London: Routledge.
Yamagishi, T. (2001) ‘Trust as a Form of Social Intelligence’, pp. 121-47 in K. Cook (ed.) Trust in
Society. New York: Russell Sage Found.
Yamagishi, T. and M. Yamagishi (1993) ‘Trust and Commitment in the United States and Japan’,
Motivation and Emotion 18(2): 129-66.
13
Figure 1 Proposed effects of personal success and social networks on trust
Objective
attainment
Personal
success
Subjective
status
Social
networks
Note: “+” means a positive effect
+
+
+
Trust
14
Table 1 Descriptive statistics of variables, AuSSA 2007
Variables
Dependent variables
Social trust
Most people can be trusted
People won’t take advantage of me
Political trust
MPs keep their promises made during the election
Public servants do what is best for the country
Public officials deal fairly with people
The treatment people get from public officials
doesn’t depend on who they know
Independent variables
Objective attainment
Years of schooling
University degree
Occupation (professionals/managers=1)
Income
Low
Middle
High
Subjective status
Status score (1-10)
Social network resources
Ability to influence decisions
Access to helpers’ favour
Size of social network (ref.=small)
Small (0-9 persons)
Medium (10-19 persons)
Large (20 or more persons)
Control variables
Gender (male=1)
Age
Age2
Marital status (married/de facto=1)
Religion (have=1)
Labour force participation
Public sector
Union member
Urban resident
Migrant
Mean (S.D.) or %
Number of cases
17.7%
13.9%
1751
1755
27.0%
30.1%
43.7%
20.1%
1733
1734
1756
1757
13.8(3.6)
26.0%
38.0%
1757
1757
1757
48.2%
36.0%
15.8%
1757
1757
1757
6.1(1.5)
1757
63.9%
61.8%
1757
1757
29.9%
26.9%
43.3%
1757
1757
1757
51.0%
48.8
2631.9(1600.1)
72.9%
67.3%
68.6%
25.0%
54.0%
68.0%
20.3%
1757
1757
1757
1757
1757
1757
1757
1757
1757
1757
15
Table 2 Binary logistic regressions in predicting social trust and political trust, AuSSA 2007
Predictor variables
Social trust
Most
People won’t
people can take advantage
be trusted
of me
(Model 1)
(Model 2)
MPs keep their
promises made
during the election
(Model 3)
Objective attainment
Years of schooling
1.044!
1.035
.993
University degree
2.062***
2.501***
1.203
Occupation (professionals/managers=1)
1.150
1.387!
1.069
Income (ref.=low)
Middle
.639**
.762
.725*
High
.586*
.648!
.853
Subjective status
Status score
1.147**
1.140*
1.201***
Social network resources
Ability to influence decisions
.772
.828
1.193
Access to helpers’ favour
1.544**
1.490*
1.224
Size of social network (ref.=small)
Medium
1.347
1.393
.968
Large
1.505*
1.415!
1.118
Control variables
Gender (male=1)
.747*
.374***
1.423**
Age
1.009
1.068*
1.016
Age2
1.000
1.000
1.000
Marital status (married/de facto=1)
1.322
1.143
.939
Religion (have=1)
1.045
.639**
1.355*
Labour force participation
.963
.923
.886
Public sector
1.020
1.000
1.054
Union member
1.014
1.196
.977
Urban resident
.872
.749!
.978
Migrant
.719!
.846
.863
Constant
.024***
.006***
.044***
Nagelkerke R2
.099
.165
.063
Number of cases
1751
1755
1733
Note: Odds ratios are reported in the above models. !p<.1, *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001
Political trust
Public servants
Public
do what is best officials deal
for the country
fairly with
(Model 4)
people
(Model 5)
The treatment people
get from public
officials doesn’t depend
on who they know
(Model 6)
1.017
1.231
.832
1.034!
1.637**
1.321*
1.043!
1.291
.949
.958
.785
1.091
1.295
.814
1.005
1.091*
1.154***
1.137**
.995
1.253!
.817
1.310*
.873
1.207
1.185
1.043
1.158
.924
1.071
.707*
1.253
.991
1.000
.876
1.155
1.032
1.421**
1.217!
1.297*
.887
.096***
.046
1734
1.077
.980
1.000!
1.373*
1.017
.737*
1.652***
.938
.919
1.185
.127***
.145
1756
1.285!
1.077**
.999**
.974
1.007
.815
1.842***
.878
1.152
1.119
.012***
.072
1757
16
Table 3 Correlation of social trust and political trust, AuSSA 2007
(1)
(1) People can be trusted
(2) People won’t take advantage
of me
(3) MPs keep their promises
made during the election
(4) Public servants do what is
best for the country
(5) Public officials deal fairly
with people
(6) The treatment people get
from public officials doesn’t
depend on who they know
**p<.01 (2-tailed)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
.485**
.065**
.071**
.112**
.091**
.307**
.163**
.200**
.144**
.207**
.158**
.187**
.091**
.152**
.326**