{"id":281479,"date":"2025-12-01T13:59:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T18:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/?post_type=short-read&p=281479"},"modified":"2026-03-25T17:50:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T21:50:01","slug":"where-most-people-trust-others-and-where-they-dont-around-the-world","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2025\/12\/01\/where-most-people-trust-others-and-where-they-dont-around-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Where most people trust others and where they don\u2019t around the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A
A crowd dances at a midsummer celebration in Link\u00f6ping, Sweden, on June 20, 2025. (Pradeep Dambarage\/Nurphoto via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Social trust plays an important role in society. In the United States, people who trust others are more likely to help their neighbors or friends in times of need<\/a> and have greater confidence in institutions<\/a>, according to recent Pew Research Center studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yet in the U.S. and many other nations, social trust is far from ubiquitous. While a majority of U.S. adults (55%) say most people can be trusted, a sizable share (44%) say most people can’t<\/em> be trusted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across all 25 countries we surveyed earlier this year, trust in others varies widely. In Sweden, for example, 83% of adults say most people can be trusted. But in Turkey, only 14% express this view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trust tends to be higher in the high-income countries surveyed than in the middle-income ones. And within mostly high-income countries, we also see gaps in trust by education, income and age. (Read more about country income classifications<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How we did this<\/summary>\n

This Pew Research Center analysis focuses on social trust in 25 countries across North America, Europe, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For non-U.S. data, this analysis draws on nationally representative surveys of 28,333 adults conducted Jan. 8 to April 26, 2025. All surveys were conducted over the phone with adults in Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Surveys were conducted face-to-face in Argentina, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and Turkey. In Australia, we used a mixed-mode probability-based online panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the United States, we surveyed 9,544 U.S. adults from Feb. 3 to 9, 2025. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center\u2019s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Surveys were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP\u2019s methodology<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We conducted simultaneous telephone and face-to-face surveys in Hungary and Poland in 2024. The 2024 data in this report comes from the telephone survey for direct comparison to our 2025 telephone data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In each country surveyed, only religious groups with large enough sample sizes for analysis are included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To compare educational groups across countries, we standardize education levels based on the United Nations\u2019 International Standard Classification of Education<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We classify populist parties using three external measures and define a party as populist when at least two of these three sources classify it as such. For more information, read \u201cClassifying European political parties<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the questions used for this analysis<\/a>, along with the responses, and the survey methodology<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n

In this analysis, you will find:<\/p>\n\n\n\n