Trust and its Relationship to Demographic Factors

Abstract

Problem statement: Social trust is the main theme in the social life. Trust is “the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest and cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms”. Development, social trust and security are intertwined categories and have interaction to each other. Social trust, as a main factor in social capital, provide social context for developmental programs. This study, examine the affect of Demographic factors on the social trust to others. As social trust is a key factor in social relationship, this study is needed to evaluate such factor according to demographic factors. Approach: This study has been done on existing data about Iranian values and attitudes. Some factors such as gender, age, education level, job situation, marital situation have been studied in this study. Some of these variables such as education, correspondence to development level, especially in social development. This study is done via documental method (archive and Documental data about mentioned themes) and second analysis of The Iranian National Values and attitudes Survey (2000). Results: Findings of this study indicated that there is significant relationship between all of independent variables (Gender, age, education level, job situation, marital situation) and social trust to families and relatives, there is significant relationship between variables such as gender, education level, job situation, marital situation (independent variables) and social trust to friends. Analyzing the data showed that, the residents of less and more developed cities have different situation in trust. Conclusion/Recommendations: This study introduces three types of trust upon the development level of societies. Trust in Iran is an example of trust structure in developing societies.