An employee of a Chinese company participates in a “trust-fall” game during a team-building retreat.

 

In the past few years, many news stories have conveyed the narrative of a profound crisis of confidence among the Chinese people. The common perception is that even as China grows richer, there has been a decline in social trust, which is defined as level of faith in other people. However, such a subjective perception does not conform to survey outcomes.
 

From 1981 to 2014, a team from the World Values Survey conducted six investigations in more than 100 countries. According to the results, people around the world have become increasingly reluctant to trust others in the past three decades. When asked whether most people are reliable, 34.8 percent of the respondents interviewed in the 1980s answered affirmatively, while that number had declined to 25.4 percent in the most recent survey. Alarming as it is, the 10 percent drop reveals that the crisis of confidence is not something unique to China but represents a global trend.

 

Survey outcomes
Another curious outcome revealed by the World Values Survey is that Chinese, in general, tend to believe that most people are trustworthy. In six surveys spanning more than 30 years, this belief has never faded. Judging from this outcome alone, China undoubtedly outperforms nearly all other countries in terms of social trust.

In his book Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity, Stanford political scientist Francis Fukuyama classified societies into high-trust and low-trust societies based on individual spontaneity when establishing partnerships with others. From this perspective, China is a low-trust society relative to Japan, he concluded.
 

Fukuyama’s verdict is at odds with the outcome of the latest World Values Survey, which covers the period from 2010 to 2014. It showed that, while the global average level of trust dropped to 25.4 percent, more than 64.4 percent of Chinese respondents said most people are trustworthy, surpassing the global average by a sizeable margin. Taking into account all six investigations, it can be unmistakably concluded that the level of trust among Chinese has been consistently higher than not only the global average but also exceeded the level of Japan, Korea and the United States.
 

According to a World Bank report, business professionals in regions of high social capital are able to weave a network of mutual trust more effectively to nurture a healthy, ever-growing economy. No less importantly, high-trust countries have an advantage in social order and economic development. In this light, China is unlikely to be a low-trust country, considering its sustained rapid economic growth after the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy.
 

In the past three decades, China’s social trust level has followed a U-shaped pattern. In 1990, 60.3 percent of the respondents to the survey believed most people to be reliable. But five years later, the figure dropped to 53 percent and remained at the same level until 2007. Since then, China’s social trust level has been on the rise and reached a record high at 64.4 percent in the most recent investigation.
 

In 2009, Danish researchers Lars Torpe and Henrik Lolle argued that trust in strangers is a more accurate indicator of level of trust in a society compared to trust in “most people,” which is too vague to be valid. According to the data released by the Chinese General Social Survey project, 73.4 percent of respondents interviewed in 2003 said that they were suspicious of strangers, while the figure dropped to 52.2 percent in 2013. Only 4.3 percent of respondents interviewed in 2003 had faith in strangers, but that figure had grown to 18.8 percent by 2013. It can be logically concluded that Chinese people have an ever-growing confidence in others generally speaking while trust in strangers has surged in the past decade. The World Values Survey and the Chinese General Social Survey both confirm that China has been a high-trust society since the 1980s and fared better and better in the past decade.

 

Complexities
Apparently, there is a disparity between the perceived crisis of confidence and the fact that China is a high-trust society. The question is: Where does this come from? Part of the answer lies in the complex nature of trust. How should trust be situated within different kinds of social relations? How can the level of trust be quantified? How should we contextualize the dynamics of trust?

Generally speaking, people are less likely to trust strangers than their relatives. Yet, this merely speaks to a natural human tendency, not a crisis of confidence. Furthermore, people tend to afford the same person a different amount of trust depending on the context. Therefore, interpersonal trust surges or falls in different contexts, defying sweeping generalizations. There are three types of trust: consanguineous, reciprocal and institutional. Consanguineous trust and reciprocal trust are more likely to be cliquish and antagonistic to broad cooperation, since these forms are bound to specific individuals. As human societies become increasingly sophisticated, institutional trust plays an ever bigger role in individual growth, organizational efficiency and the formation of a peaceful society.
 

People do not trust different social groups to the same extent, according to the Chinese General Social Survey. The “differential mode of association” not only defines interpersonal relations but also dictates social trust. People trust their immediate family most, yet trust fades as blood ties weaken.

The investigation also found that Chinese people are unwilling to trust their colleagues, nor do they have that much faith in corporate decision-makers or leaders of non-profit institutions. Surveys reported that 53.3 percent of people trust business executives while about 58 percent trust directors of non-profit and non-governmental organizations. It means that Chinese, without the mediation of acquaintances, are unlikely to trust institutions.
 

It is worth mentioning that Chinese have much more faith in doctors, 82.5 percent, and teachers, 91.7 percent, despite substantial media coverage on violent tensions between doctors and patients and spats among teachers, students and parents.

 

Misperceptions
Domestic and international survey data confirm the level of social trust in China has not only been consistently higher than the global average but also has continued to climb in the past few years. Then, from whence does this perceived crisis of confidence come?

First, it is partly related to media transformation. In tandem with the improvement and popularization of communication technology, media plays an ever bigger role in shaping individual life and society as a whole. Meanwhile, as competition in the industry intensifies, media groups are tempted to exaggerate tensions and vicious events, concocting a dubious narrative that simply does not exist in reality. Although media coverage mostly helps expose social issues, it needs to present concerned citizens a rational assessment of problems at hand.

Second, from the vantage point of social development theories, it is only natural for people to expect that a more trusting atmosphere in societies as a whole could coexist with greater suspicion of authorities, which may give rise to a crisis of confidence. Seeing from the sociocultural perspective, trust, rooted in interpersonal communication and connection, is understandably vulnerable to value conflicts and ethical conundrums.
 

Last, the extant methodologies and measurements for gauging trust are not flawless, which has long been a subject of discussion in domestic and overseas academic circles. Also, the so-called crisis of confidence and societal trust are not clearly defined concepts. It is of great urgency to devise a more rigid measurement system with the benefit of hindsight on social development and cultural diversity.
 

To sum up, there is no short-cut on the long march toward a trusting society. To achieve the goal, a consistent value system, high efficiency, ethical and feasible sociopolitical institutions, and faithful journalistic practices must be in place first.

 

Tang Lina is a research fellow from the National Survey Research Center at Renmin University of China.