Study Finds Americans Less Trustful

By Dan Trimble 

Stonehill News Blog Staff

 A new trend of Americans trusting institutions and each other less makes it more difficult to solve national challenges such as government corruption and improving representation, a recently released study found. 

The Pew Research center released a study, “Trust and Distrust in America,” on July 22, 2019, by Lee Rainie, Scott Keeter, and Andrew Perrin. It found that among 10,618 adults surveyed, 46% of 18- to 29-year-olds, a plurality, showed high levels of distrust in government institutions.  

Cory Manento, a professor of political science at Stonehill College, said that young people may distrust institutions because their quality of life is threatened.  

“One thing that might be driving [distrust] could be, number one, objectively speaking, young people in this country have been put into a difficult position, right? Mountains of student debt, having to deal with massive problems in our society like climate change and things like that, so it could be a genuine reaction to that,” he said.  

Nathan Brown, an 18-year-old first-year student at Stonehill College, was not surprised that many of his peers distrust institutions. 

“I think it makes sense. Most of those people grew up with the Internet in their lives, so I think the Internet has definitely played a part in building that sort of distrust towards institutions because there’s so much information available, so it’s hard to censor the information that’s not favorable towards an institution,” he said. 

Brown believes that distrust of both institutions and older generations is not new, but he does think it runs deeper today than it did in the past. 

“There was a whole culture clash that happened during the 1960s and all that, where there was distrust in the government, with the Vietnam War, that kind of caused people to have distrust in institutions,” he said. 

 “I wouldn’t say it’s unique for this kind of generation of people, but I would say that there are probably more people nowadays in this generation, that doesn’t have a lot of trust for these institutions,” he said. 

Manento too said younger people may be weighed down with a heavier sense of cynicism. 

“I wonder if it’s a little bit of maybe just natural generational change, maybe younger people in general just happen to be more cynical, as they move along in their lives, as they engage more with politics, they’re a little bit less cynical, and maybe that ties into politicians more sort of paying attention to active voting demographics,” he said. 

Brown has mixed views on whether he trusts societal institutions. 

“If we’re talking about the government, I think that sort of institution is helpful with stability in the country. There are certain institutions that help provide stability, like the government providing the laws and the army as an institution, police as an institution in many cases, just these things that uphold laws and order,” he said.  

Despite this, he understands that institutions are not always perfect. 

“I know there are other countries where their institutions are much less trustworthy, where rights aren’t a top priority, so it’s less likely that the people in those countries can voice their complaints about the institutions than we can over here,” he said. 

Manento said the distrust trend may make matters worse as it may keep Americans from participating in voting and staying informed about current events. 

“It means people are more cynical about the political system in general, and when that happens, it makes our government less responsive to the will of the people, or to the best interests of the people, and that’s not a good thing,” he said.  

Manento hopes that this trend will remain just that and that young people will grow to trust institutions more. 

“If it’s a longer-lasting thing, it may undermine our institutions and what really holds our institutions together is us upholding the values that are supposed to be embodied in those institutions,” he said. 

Brown said that while generalized distrust can be harmful, vigilance to make sure institutions are run correctly is healthy and helpful. 

“There are definitely cases where distrust is necessary and can be favorable to keeping the status quo and stability,” he said. 

He believes the people in charge of the institutions hold the burden of making themselves more trustworthy. 

“There are definitely cases where people don’t do what they should be doing, so it’s also the people’s role to look at the institutions, see how they’re functioning, and try to make sure that they’re doing,” he said. 

Manento believes that education on the role of government in society, including on its flaws, along with advocating for change, could help increase trust. He also advocates for the government to take a role in reforming itself. 

“Things like getting money out of politics, overturning Citizens United, something which the vast majority of the public wants to happen, people generally want less money in politics, that could go a long way to helping people believe that their member of Congress, or other members, aren’t just beholden to these special interests,” he said. 

The study found that Americans agree that distrust in their institutions is a problem, they differed in their reasoning as to what causes distrust. Some said the political system is broken, while others said people are less reliable than they were in the past, and still others said it is because of a cultural sickness and national decline.  

Researchers did find, however, that Americans, regardless of their politics or backgrounds or statuses, agreed strongly that something needs to be done to decrease distrust in society.