Does Generalized Social Trust Lead to Associational Membership? Unravelling a Bowl of Well-Tossed Spaghetti

By K. M. Sønderskov. 2011

140 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Within the social capital literature it is often assumed that membership of voluntary associations causes generalized social trust and not the other way around. This study challenges this assumption by investigating if generalized social trust causes membership in a novel design that yields valid results despite possible feed-back effects from membership to trust. Using individual-level data from several countries, the article shows that trust does increase membership. Treating associational membership as exogenous to trust produces biased results, it is therefore concluded. Moreover, the study provides rare individual-level evidence for a connection between generalized social trust and collective action in that generalized social trust in particular increases membership of associations producing public goods.

Subfields: Demography, Safety Research, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/59bad5d49452f45f726dd475e88e60bf613ff53e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Demography

1. Erik van Ingen
2. René Bekkers

In Safety Research

1. Erik van Ingen
2. René Bekkers
3. Pamala Wiepking

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Erik van Ingen
2. René Bekkers
3. Pamala Wiepking
4. F. Handy

Citations in the corpus

• Generalized Trust Through Civic Engagement? Evidence from Five National Panel Studies (2015, background): “Members of voluntary associations display higher levels of trust than nonmembers (Brehm & Rahn, 1997; Claibourn & Martin, 2000; Paxton, 2007; Sønderskov, 2010; Stolle, 1998, 2001b; Stolle & Rochon, 1998; Wollebæk & Strømsnes, 2008).”