Trust, Trust Attitudes and Group Membership

We investigate the correlation between membership to different types of groups and levels of trust by using a field-based trust experiment and attitudinal trust questions. We find that membership in a group promoted by a development project is positively correlated with revealed trust, whereas membership in a community group is negatively correlated with revealed trust, but these correlations are relatively weak (p value = 0.10). This suggests that trusting individuals do not necessarily self-select to participate in group-based interventions, that participation in community groups might not enhance trust and that community group membership may be driven by other motives. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.