The Moral Foundations of Trust

by Eric M. Uslaner

• ISBN13: 9780521011037
• ISBN10: 0521011035
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-09-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Moral Foundations of Trust seeks to explain why people place their faith in strangers, and why doing so matters. Trust is a moral value that does not depend upon personal experience or on interacting with people in civic groups or informal socializing. Instead, we learn to trust from our parents, and trust is stable over long periods of time. Trust depends on an optimistic world view: the world is a good place and we can make it better. Trusting people are more likely to give through charity and volunteering. Trusting societies are more likely to redistribute resources from the rich to the poor. Trust has been in decline in the United States for over 30 years. The roots of this decline are traceable to declining optimism and increasing economic inequality, which Uslaner supports by aggregate time series in the United States and cross-sectional data across market economies.

Author Biography

Eric M. Uslaner is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he has taught since 1975.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Trust and the Good Life	1	(13)
Strategic Trust and Moralistic Trust	14	(37)
Counting (on) Trust	51	(25)
The Roots of Trust	76	(39)
Trust and Experience	115	(45)
Stability and Change in Trust	160	(30)
Trust and Consequences	190	(27)
Trust and the Democratic Temperament	217	(32)
Epilogue Trust and the Civic Community	249	(8)
Appendix A	257	(4)
Appendix B	261	(6)
Appendix C	267	(4)
References	271	(16)
Author Index	287	(5)
Subject Index	292