Please see below selected recent trust-related change.
See also:
January 2024
- Only 16% of Americans trust “government” – that’s down more than 60 points from “peak trust” in the mid-1960s. Fewer than a third of Americans trust each other, down from nearly 47% in the early 1970s. Meanwhile, half of Americans say “the media” deliberately misleads them, and fewer than one-quarter say journalists have society’s interests at heart, reported GZERO.
- At the same time, polling by the Knight Foundation showed Americans were 17 points more likely to trust local news sources than national ones and while only a third of Americans trust the federal government, nearly 70% trust local government, where practical results are usually more important than partisanship.
November 2023
- A UN survey found that 85% of citizens across 16 countries are worried about online disinformation. The 16 countries surveyed were each due to host elections in 2024. The survey found that 87% of respondents fear disinformation will influence the outcome of those elections.
October 2023
- Between 2021-23, consumer trust in corporate sustainability pledges dropped by half. While there have been endless climate reports, treaties and agreements over the past two decades, for many, the effects are yet to be seen.
July 2023
- Trust in the news has fallen, across countries, reversing - in many countries - the gains made at the height of the pandemic. On average, only four in ten of Reuters' total sample said they trust most news most of the time.
June 2023
- In Why Trust Matters, Benjamin Ho argued, inter alia, that the ability to trust strangers is the mark of a successful developed economy. Throughout history, institutions were created to build trust. Companies, jobs, brands and online platforms all confront trust issues. Meanwhile, a monetary system relies on confidence, and financial crises reveal what happens when trust is lacking, for example. Contracts can help increase trust, but they also remove the opportunity to show trust.
February 2023
- Kevin Vallier, author of Trust in a Polarized Age, argued that our ability to trust those we do not know has also expanded. We now interact with people whose identities we will never know, and with anonymous others within systems we do not understand. Social life has a new essential ingredient: social trust. Social trust is our faith that strangers will follow established norms. It is not intimate trust, such as that between friends and family, but neither is it institutional trust, such as our trust in democracy or the military. Social trust means trust in diffuse others.
December 2022
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June 2022
- Further reading:
May 2022
- BCG believes that most business leaders are only now beginning to realise the true importance of trust. More than a mere sentiment, trust has economic value and, in the digital age, its relevance continues to grow. At the macro level, it enables new disruptive products, services, and strategic moves; at the micro level, it smooths the way for smaller transactions at scale among a vastly greater number of buyers and sellers who have no prior relationship. The business value of trustworthiness is not just monetary: trust is becoming increasingly important to a company's success in recruiting talent, to its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance; and to its very licence to operate.
January 2022
- The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer report showed that people trust the technology industry more than any other, even more than healthcare, the sector the world relied on most heavily during the pandemic. For Quartz, the findings went against the grain of reports of an ongoing “techlash”—a wave of hostility to technology, and are perhaps explained by the fact that they followed a period in which technology had proven even more indispensable to our lives during the pandemic.
December 2021
- A decline in trust is happening all over the world. The 2021 Edelman Trust Index showed drops across the globe. For Bill Gates, part of it is understandable: any time you have a really big crisis like a pandemic, people look for someone to blame and governments are an obvious target. However, this trend toward less trust in government didn’t start in 2020. The pandemic only made clearer what had already been happening.
November 2021
- When people talked about the economic damage wrought by the pandemic, they often focused on quantifiable items like GDP and employment. But The Atlantic's Jerry Useem argued that we also need to take full stock of another kind of economic loss: trust. Useem pointed to worker surveys in Finland and Australia showing marked declines in workplace trust in the wake of the pandemic. This kind of "trust recession" can lead to missed economic opportunities: a 15% increase in a population's trust in one another can yields a one percentage point uptick in GDP, according to research.
July 2021
- Reviewing The Power of Trust: How Companies Build It, Lose It, Regain It, by Sandra J Sucher and Shalene Gupta, the FT warned that the rise of the service economy has made trust more important than ever for companies, and current geopolitical issues, notably climate change, require trust and co-operation on a global scale. The authors - academics at Harvard Business School - have built a model to help company executives understand how trust works and take practical steps to foster it within the places they lead. The authors break their theory down into four parts: competence (your ability), motives (your intention), means (the fairness of your processes) and impact (the outcome and the ability to admit when something has gone wrong). This is also a book of varying stories, including how the authors developed a level of trust in one another, and why, for example, Quakers earned so much trust as business people.
May 2021
- Geographers are concerned about the spread of fake, AI-generated satellite imagery. Such pictures could mislead in a variety of ways. They could be used to create hoaxes about wildfires or floods, or to discredit stories based on real satellite imagery. Deepfake geography might even be a national security issue, as geopolitical adversaries use fake satellite imagery to mislead foes.
April 2021
- As the world continued to grapple with COVID-19, economic turmoil and systemic racism, people's relationship with technology became increasingly complicated. Trust in the tech sector declined by 6 points globally in 2020, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, hitting all-time lows in 17 markets including the US, UK, China and Mexico. Axios reported that the “high public esteem” that has long shielded the tech industry from critics and regulators was waning amid a proliferation of misinformation, privacy concerns and increased awareness of bias in artificial intelligence.
January 2021
- As the world continued to grapple with COVID-19, economic turmoil and systemic racism in early 2021, a proliferation of misinformation abounded. The Edelman Trust Barometer claimed that we're in the middle of an "infodemic," and people have lost trust in all news sources. Trust in social media is at an all-time low (35%), according to their annual report, while trust in owned media and traditional media are at 41% and 53%, respectively. Business was "the most trusted institution among the four studied" (business, government, NGOs and media) with a 61% trust level globally.
October 2020
- A report on trust in media from global market research firm Ipsos found that, globally, 59% of people believe they can spot fake news, but that only 30% of their fellow citizens can. Two-thirds of people worldwide say they will only read news they can access for free. A majority worldwide think in their society ‘the system is broken’. Just under half believe the solution is ‘a strong ruler who breaks the rules’.
- Research shows that employees in high-trust organisations are better at collaborating, more productive and show greater loyalty than their peers in low-trust companies. There is also evidence to suggest they suffer less from stress and anxiety, which enables stronger performance at work. But trust in the workplace can be harder to build and maintain during remote working. Positive leadership is more important than ever to ensure leaders remain credible and reliable when dealing with a remote workforce. If the coronavirus crisis has taught us anything, it’s that with childcare or home help removed, we all have the same personal issues to juggle. The benefit of the increase of remote work is that it’s possible this new way of working will result in a more trusting work environment when, and if, life returns to normal.
September 2020
- Research from Rutgers University found that the prevalence of misinformation has a diverse impact on trust in society, with benefits for the government, at the expense of trust in the media, which declines. The researchers began by defining fake news as information that’s designed to look like legitimate news content, but with few of the practices or editorial standards of proper journalism.The analysis found that exposure to fake news decreased our general trust in the media generally, but it appeared to increase trust in politics, with trust in both the justice system and in governments rising.
August 2020
- Even prior to the coronavirus pandemic, managing teleworkers presented unique obstacles. Research shows that managers who cannot “see” their direct reports sometimes struggle to trust that their employees are indeed working. When such doubts creep in, managers can start to develop an unreasonable expectation that those team members be available at all times, ultimately disrupting their work-home balance and causing more job stress.
June 2020
- BCG argued that, post the coronavirus pandemic, trust is essential for businesses to regain capacity to operate. Employees need to go back to work, but they may not immediately trust the safety of their business environment. Measures such as temperature checks and social distancing in workplaces can help. But trust is also crucial to drive customer demand. Places linked to contamination risks may be avoided for some time. Booking systems that take into account social distancing can provide help. Finally, trust will be crucial to enable certain orchestrating institutions to function again. Consider, for example, public transportation, which is so essential to many people’s commutes. With typically crowded systems, people may be hesitant to return to old habits. Systematically checking temperatures and reducing capacity can help maintain commuters’ trust.
March 2020
- Fighting misinformation is harder than platforms would have us believe. According to cognitive psychologists, social media companies “should rigorously test their ideas for combating fake news and not just rely on common sense or intuition about what will work.”
January 2020
- While it's now commonplace to talk about a crisis of trust: in big business, public institutions, politicians and more, Ipsos MORI released a report that demonstrates the truth is more complex. There is no acute trust crisis; though trust in major institutions and business is often found to be lower than it was half a century ago. Politicians are not very trusted, but they never have been. Journalist Matthew Gwyther dives in to these findings in his podcast, The Trust Delusion.
December 2019
- Further reading:
November 2019
- The number of countries suffering organised online political disinformation campaigns has shot up 45 percent since 2017, to a current total of 70, according to a recent report by Oxford researchers.
- Further reading:
- 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer - Edelman
- ACCA welcomes the EC Guidelines for Trustworthy AI - The Wonk
- Decoding Organizational Trust - Accenture
- Men trust institutions more than women do - Quartz
- Trust in politicians falls sending them spiralling back to the bottom of the Veracity Index - Ipsos MORI
- Trust: the world's currency - World Economic Forum
- What factors underpin the erosion of trust in science? - RealKM
- What is intelligence without trust? - EY
October 2019
- Further reading:
September 2019
- There appears to be a crisis of trust and rise of prejudice around the world, with the elites and mainstream media challenged by an angry populace. However, concern about trust may be out of step with reality: in recent years, in many international surveys trends in social trust have been flat or rising.
- There has been a historic decline in trust in government since the 1960s, but it is not new or as dramatic as media coverage suggests. Trust in politicians is low – but it always has been. Trust in other people has changed little in the last 20 years.Public confidence in those who hold positions of power in the US is waning, with 81% of Americans agreeing that members of Congress act unethically "some" or "all or most of the time," according to a recent Pew poll. Over a third of those surveyed think that powerful people who behave unethically don't face serious consequences.
- Further reading:Social Credit Scores in a Low-Trust Society - Asia Society
July 2019
- In The Trust Crisis, Harvard Business Review argued that businesses put an awful lot of effort into meeting the diverse needs of their stakeholders — customers, investors, employees, and society at large. But they’re not paying enough attention to one ingredient that’s crucial to productive relationships with those stakeholders: trust. When we decide to interact with a company, we believe it won’t deceive us or abuse its relationship with us. However, trust is a double-edged sword. Our willingness to be vulnerable also means that our trust can be betrayed. And over and over, businesses have betrayed stakeholders’ trust.
- Further reading:
June 2019
- A 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, In Brands We Trust?, prepared for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, found that only one-third of consumers (34%) trust most of the brands they buy or use. The survey of 16,000 people in eight countries reveals that brand trust (81%) is a deal breaker or a deciding factor when they’re considering a purchase, trailing only quality (85%), convenience (84%), value (84%) and ingredients (82%).
- Further reading:
May 2019
- EY pointed to the results of the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer which underscore the benefits enjoyed by businesses that invest in building and maintaining trust. The survey found that employees who trust their employers show greater advocacy (71%), loyalty (78%), engagement (74%) and commitment (81%). Moreover, 78% of respondents say that how a company treats their employees is one of the best indicators of its trustworthiness. Trust is not just important for new businesses but also for large incumbents that are using data in new ways as they transform digitally. A majority of respondents (67%) said that a good reputation may get them to try a product, but if they can’t trust the company behind the product they will stop buying.
- Further reading:
April 2019
- Just 21% of South Africans trust their government, according to an annual poll conducted by the public relations firm Edelman. That's the lowest percentage among the 26 countries surveyed.
March 2019
- Trust has traditionally been considered a soft corporate issue, its value to a company being unclear, argued Accenture, noting that business trust incidents are on the rise - and increasingly visible to everyone - making trust an inescapable issue for companies.
February 2019
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January 2019
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December 2018
- In What is intelligence without trust?, EY discussed artificial intelligence risks and ethics, and key actions for business leaders to consider when navigating these perceived challenges.
- Further reading:
November 2018
- A study published by BBC World Service found that in India, distrust of mainstream media is leading people to spread information from alternative online sources without attempting to verify whether the news is true. The study also found that “a rising tide of nationalism in India” is poisoning political debate.
- The digital world is exploding, but if we cannot fully trust how it all works it will never live up to its potential. It’s going to take confidence in the people, the processes and the technology to build that trust. PwC's Digital Trust Insights survey drew on data from 3,000 business leaders in 81 territories to identify major opportunities to get to a secure digital world. As cybersecurity, privacy and data ethics become increasingly intertwined, organisations need a central place to turn for actionable advice.
- The range of information that ordinary people entrust to organisations and the impact a data breach can have on their lives is increasing quickly. It's not just about bank account details being exploited by online fraudsters, but also about sensitive information that can cause distress if shared with the wrong people. Our digital footprint contains information about every aspect of our lives, spanning the emails we send, the websites we visit and the information we submit to online services. Unless we can have confidence that this information will be held securely and used in an appropriate manner, warned Raconteur, we cannot have trust in the daily online engagement central to modern life.
October 2018
- Further reading:
September 2018
- “The world is suffering from Trust Deficit Disorder,” UN secretary-general António Guterres warned at the start of the UN's 2018 General Debate.
- However, trust in the European Union is still high, claimed GZEROMedia, adding that Europeans broadly support the EU’s core pillars - including the euro currency and free movement of people across internal borders. In fact, even if they find Brussels’ sprawling bureaucracy dull and tedious, a growing proportion of Europeans trust EU institutions more than national ones, even if those numbers vary somewhat from country to country.
- EY's Digital Trust campaign looked at how AI is quickly outpacing the governance and controls that guide its use - increasing demand from clients about how they should adapt.- see How do you teach AI the value of trust?
- Further reading:
August 2018
- Trust is a fundamental element of social capital – a key contributor to sustaining well-being outcomes.
- A recent work written in a conversational format addressed many trust-related issues critical to our future, both individually and collectively - i.e. what to do about change, why conflict is necessary, how to make quality decisions etc.
- Trust can be increasingly be identified as an explicit value of many organisations; it is taking on a hard-edged business relevance. Indeed if trust is absent in the workforce, fundamental problems can arise, so many people are trying hard to work in environments in which trust grows, where people feel good about what they do and where relationships are continuously energised.
- A leading economist argued that trusting complete strangers is an integral part of a functioning economic society.
- Across the world, there are very large differences in trust levels, though trends tend to be fairly stable.
- Reported trust in public institutions has been going down recently.
- However, a 2016 TED talk argued that, while we used to place our trust in institutions like governments and banks, today we increasingly rely on others, often strangers, on platforms like Airbnb and Uber and through technologies like the blockchain. This new era of trust could bring with it a more transparent, inclusive and accountable society - if we get it right.
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