Religion and Interpersonal Trust: An Individual Differences Analysis

<p>Several factors including experience, group membership, and religious involvement can have an impact on trust. The purpose of the current research was to examine religion as a possible factor in an individual’s trust behaviors. Researchers hypothesized that (1) individuals who identified themselves as being religious would trust strangers more easily than those who did not identify with a religion, and (2) that individuals would more easily trust strangers if the strangers were presented as being religious. Seventy-two participants were presented with three vignettes and were asked to respond to a series of scales measuring general trust, religiosity, conservatism, social distance, and demographics. Descriptive statistics, a multiple regression analysis, correlations, a mixed ANOVA, a repeated measures ANOVA, and a chi-square analysis were conducted to examine the data. Findings indicate that individuals who identified themselves as being relatively more religious did not report being able to trust strangers more easily than those who were relatively less religious and that individuals reported trusting the strangers more easily if the other person was presented as being religious versus nonreligious.</p>

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Sawyer, Kaitlyn

Contributors dc:contributor

• Amy Hackney
• Daniel Webster

• religion
• trust
• strangers
• Psychology
• Social Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/1240

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-2335