Rally around your Fellows: Information and Social Trust in a Real-World Experiment during the Corona Crisis

Filsinger, Maximilian; Freitag, Markus; Erhardt, Julian; Wamsler, Steffen (2021). Rally around your Fellows: Information and Social Trust in a Real-World Experiment during the Corona Crisis. The social science journal, pp. 1-15. Taylor & Francis 10.1080/03623319.2021.1954463

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In this paper, we claim that information about social cohesion during a crisis
influences social trust. We maintain that it is key to distinguish between
positive and negative information about social cohesion during the crisis as
well as between different forms of social trust, namely particularized trust,
identity-based trust, and trust in strangers. Using a real-world survey experiment,
we show that positive information on social cohesion has the potential
to promote identity-based trust in times of crisis, thus triggering a rallyaround-
the-fellows effect. This seems to be prevalent for respondents with
a lower socio-economic status. Consequently, receiving positive news about
social cohesion may trigger identity-based trust in social strata where it is less
likely to occur. However, among people ranking lower on the social ladder,
negative information undermines their already fragile trust in strangers. Our
results have important implications by showing how different information
about the impact of a crisis affects the glue that holds society together.

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