Picture two questions. The first: "Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?" The second: "How many people in this country trust one another?"
Both seem to be about the same thing: trust in society. Yet put them to the same countries and the rankings can come out almost reversed. That is what a recent study in the journal Scientific Reports found.
Where the data come from
The study draws on the Global Flourishing Study, one of the largest current surveys of wellbeing. It is run by the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion, with data collected by Gallup. It is a panel survey: the same people answer every year for five years.
The authors of the new paper, including Byron Johnson and Tyler VanderWeele, used the first wave: 202,898 adults in 22 countries, surveyed mostly in 2023. The countries include the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Poland, Japan, India, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia and the Philippines.
They focused on the second of our questions: "How many people in this country trust one another?" Answers ranged from "all" to "none". The authors counted "all" or "most" as a sign of high perceived trust.
Two questions, two kinds of trust
The difference between the questions is subtle but important.
The classic question, whether "most people can be trusted", has been asked for decades in the World Values Survey. It asks about your own trust: how you yourself approach people you don't know.
The Global Flourishing Study question asks something else: how much trust you see around you. It is not about your behavior but about your impression of society. The authors call this "perceived trust".
You can trust people yourself and still believe that others don't trust each other. And vice versa.
A ranking turned upside down
On perceived trust, the leaders are Indonesia (50% answered "all" or "most"), the Philippines (49%) and Hong Kong (48%). That is about double the 22-country average of 25%. The lowest figures are in the United States (10%), Brazil (10%) and South Africa (11%).
Now take the classic question about one's own trust. Here the United States climbs from last place to sixth among the same countries. In different survey years, between 35% and 50% of Americans said that most people can be trusted. Indonesia and the Philippines, by contrast, end up at the very bottom: in Indonesia in 2022, only 4.6% of respondents said so.
In other words, in one country people trust others personally fairly often, yet believe their fellow citizens don't trust each other. In another, personal caution is high, while the impression of society is warm.
Why this might happen
The authors offer several explanations and are clear that they are hypotheses.
Narratives. Perceived trust is a general impression of society. It may depend more on shared stories and the media than on personal experience. For the United States, the authors point to news coverage of declining trust, narratives of political polarization, and the historical legacy of slavery and segregation.
The close circle. In Indonesia and the Philippines, kinship ties are strong. When asked about "people in this country", respondents may think first of their own. Cultural norms that value harmony and optimism may also encourage people to answer as things should be rather than as they are.
Translation and answering style. The words "how many people" may sound different in different languages. Some groups of respondents also tend to choose middle answers more often.
Who do we mean by "people"?
Behind all this lies an old problem that sociologists call the radius of trust: who exactly do people picture when they hear "most people"?
In 2011, Jan Delhey, Kenneth Newton and Christian Welzel tested this with World Values Survey data from 51 countries. They compared the classic question with separate questions about trust in one's own circle (family, neighbors, people you know) and in outsiders (strangers, people of another religion or nationality). In 41 countries, the classic question did mainly refer to outsiders. But the radius varied: it was narrower in Confucian countries and wider in wealthy ones. Adjusting for this shifted some places in trust rankings.
So even the classic question is not a perfect ruler. The new study adds that the answer depends not only on whom we picture, but on what is being asked: our own attitude or our impression of others.
Who sees more trust
The Global Flourishing Study also offers some observations about differences within countries. People aged 60–79 are, on average, more likely than younger adults to see high trust around them. Men are more likely to than women (25% versus 21%).
Education behaves unpredictably. In eight countries, including the United States, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom, perceived trust rises with education. In nine, among them Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico and Nigeria, it falls.
A crisis of which trust?
Headlines about a crisis of trust appear regularly. But they often rest on different measurements.
The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, an online survey of nearly 34,000 people in 28 countries, describes a slide into "insularity": about 70% of respondents are unwilling or hesitant to trust people with different values, views or information sources. The share is 76% in the UK, 73% in Canada and about 70% in the United States. This is trust across difference.
The OECD survey on trust in public institutions, with results published in 2026, finds that on average 40% of people in OECD countries have high or moderately high trust in their national government. This is trust in institutions.
And the Global Flourishing Study measures yet another thing: people's impression of trust among their fellow citizens. Each of these numbers is useful. But they are not interchangeable, and one cannot be used to draw conclusions about another.
Why it matters what we think others believe
Does perceived trust matter if we personally trust others? Game theory helps here.
In the classic "trust game" described by economists Joyce Berg, John Dickhaut and Kevin McCabe in 1995, one participant can send part of their money to another. The amount sent is multiplied, and the second participant decides how much to return. The first player's decision depends not only on their character, but also on what they expect from their partner.
This suggests one possible idea: if people believe that no one around them trusts anyone, they may act more cautiously even when they themselves are inclined to trust. This is our interpretation, not the study authors' conclusion, and it cannot be tested with these data. But it shows why an "impression of society" is not just a mood. It is part of how a society works. Games like this one are part of our ongoing series on game theory.
What we still don't know
- A single question. Perceived trust was measured with one item. The authors did not have the classic question in the same survey to compare answers from the same people.
- Different years. The comparison with the classic question relies on combined World Values Survey and European Values Study data, mostly from 2017–2022 but for some countries from 2004 or 2014.
- The radius of trust. It is still unclear whom respondents picture when answering about "people in this country".
- Culture and language. The authors explicitly warn that "how many people" may be understood differently across cultures, so country comparisons call for caution.
What follows from this
Next time you see a headline about "the least trusting country" or a "crisis of trust", it helps to ask three questions. Which trust is meant: in strangers, in institutions, or in people with different views? Whose: personal or perceived? And how exactly was the question worded?
The answers often matter more than the number itself. They are also a reminder that trust is not only what we feel towards others, but also what we think others feel towards all of us.
Questions for discussion
- If you were asked how many people in your country trust one another, what would you say? Does that match how much you trust others yourself?
- Who do you picture when you hear "most people": neighbors, colleagues, strangers in the street, people online?
- What do you think shapes our sense of trust in society more: personal experience, or the news and conversations around us?
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