Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T09:30:02.722Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Empirical Evidence for the Decline of Trust

from Part I - Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2019

Markus Wolfensberger
Affiliation:
Universität Basel, Switzerland
Anthony Wrigley
Affiliation:
Keele University
Get access

Summary

“Most empirical studies on trust examine the influence of certain variables (such as age, sex, education, or ethnicity) on trust at a specific moment in a specific segment of the population. However, only data collected from a representative sample of the general population over an extended period (longitudinal data) can reasonably tell us whether overall trust has declined or not. In this chapter, the authors present the two best longitudinal studies. Both come from opinion poll institutions: one from the United States (Harris Poll®), the other from the United Kingdom (Ipsos MORI®). The results of both studies are analysed and presented in graphic form. This involves a short critical analysis as to how the seeming differences between the studies are, in effect, due to methodological differences and disappear once these differences are taken into account. Although the data are fairly limited, there is still sufficient empirical evidence to suggest that trust (albeit a folk understanding of what trust is) in physicians has declined across Western countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, since the 1960s.

Type
Chapter
Information
Trust in Medicine
Its Nature, Justification, Significance, and Decline
, pp. 11 - 18
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×