Generalized trust, also known as spontaneous sociability, is the

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...

that people have in their fellow members of society in general. It is often measured in

survey Survey may refer to: Statistics and human research * Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population * Survey (human research), including opinion polls Spatial measurement * Surveying, the techniq ...

-based

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

research by asking the 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 been included in the

General Social Survey The General Social Survey (GSS) is a sociological survey created and regularly collected since 1972 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. It is funded by the National Science Foundation. The GSS collects informati ...

s in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, the

World Values Survey The World Values Survey (WVS) is a global research project that explores people's values and beliefs, how they change over time, and what social and political impact they have. Since 1981 a worldwide network of social scientists have conducted r ...

, and the

European Social Survey The European Social Survey (ESS) is a social scientific endeavour to map the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of the various populations in Europe. ESS is listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories re3data.org. Prof Rory Fitzge ...

s. Unlike many other human behavioral traits, generalized trust has been found to exhibit a moderate to low

heritability Heritability is a statistic used in the fields of breeding and genetics that estimates the degree of ''variation'' in a phenotypic trait in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population. The concept of h ...

in behavior genetic studies, implying that

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

is more important in the development of such trust than is

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

. The significant cross-national variation in levels of generalized trust also supports a significant role for cultural factors. It has been found to be associated with

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...

happiness Happiness, in the context of Mental health, mental or emotional states, is positive or Pleasure, pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishin ...

, and

self-reported health Self-rated health (also called Self-reported health, Self-assessed health, or perceived health) refers to both a single question such as "in general, would you say that your health is excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor?" and a survey question ...

. Recent work in the organizational field indicates that generalized trust can change over time temporary as a response to daily work experiences and in a more meaningful way in response to major life changes and events such as taking on a new social role.

References

{{Sociology-stub Sociological terminology