People's Trust: a Survey-Based Experiment, 2007

Trust is an important lubricant for social and economic transactions. It is related to concepts of ‘social capital’. The aims of this study were firstly to measure trust and trustworthiness in a representative sample of the British population and secondly to investigate which individual attributes may affect them. A new design of the so-called ‘trust game’ was used to measure trust and trustworthiness in interactions between anonymous individuals. The study also asked commonly used survey questions on trust, to compare attitudes with behavioural responses during the experiment. <br> <br> The sampling frame was households who were formerly members of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and who had been dropped for technical and funding reasons. One person from each household was randomly selected. The sample was not representative of the general population, as women, low-income households and the elderly were over-represented.<br> <br> Further information is available from the ESRC <a href="http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-000-22-2241/read" title ="People's Trust">People's Trust</a> award web page.<br>