By Jaime Díez MedranoDirector of the WVS Archive and {ASEPJDS}
Note of the author: What follows are weighted sample percentages, when available. All data should be taken with care, since the sample distributions by education and other socio-demographic variables in some countries, may diverge substantially from their respective population distributions.
A question that appears in almost all international comparative surveys is the 'Interpersonal Trust' question, usually asked in the following terms:
Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?
Possible answers:
There can be small variants for the wording and in some studies alternatives such as 'agree with both', 'agree with none' and so on can be added (their results are anyway very residual).
In order to build the maps we have chosen to build a Trust Index for each country, based tne the following formula:
TRUST INDEX = 100 + (% Most people can be trusted) - (% Can´t be too careful)
In this way, indexes over 100 correspond to countries where a majority of people trust others, while an index under 100 corresponds to countries where a majority of people think one can never be too careful when dealing with others.
We have set a time frame to the 1995-2009 period, taking the most recent survey for each country. You can see the data list by country at the end.
As the world map shows, the worls doesn't trust much other people. Leaving appart the Northern Europe region (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and FInland), and six other countries with almost an equal number of people trusting and not trusting, the remaining ones fall under the equilibrium index.
On the bottom side, Turkey, Trinidad and Tobago and Rwanda are the least trusty.
Researchers can find a lot of literature about the Interpersonal Trust topic.
WORLD MAP OF INTERPERSONAL TRUST
(Click over the map to enlarge)
What follows is a series of detailed maps for different continents or regions of the world:
NORTH AMERICA
LATIN AMERICA
EUROPE
ASIA
AFRICA
OCEANIA
MIDDLE EAST
DATA SERIES
RANKING OF COUNTRIES
