Sympathy or Tolerance? A Comparison of the Effects of Trusting Most People and Trusting Strangers in Asian Societies

The social sciences have increasingly focused on generalized social trust--namely, trust in most people--as a key value for civil society. However, if all values have boundaries and are simultaneously inclusive and exclusive, is generalized social trust inclusive of all people? Are social minorities such as strangers overlooked? Sociological research on strangers defines trust in strangers as civil inattention or indifference to others--a momentary attitude of tolerance toward unknown others while being detached from them. We distinguish trust in strangers from the concept of generalized trust by focusing on collective behavior denoting sympathy for unknown others, as measured by trust in most people. This study compares trust in most people and trust in strangers as a measure of generalized trust, and examines whether both types of trust can be qualitatively distinguished by using data from the International Comparative Surveys on Lifestyle and Values (ICSLV) for seven Asian societies. Using OLS regression, this study compares the effect of two kinds of trust on individual well-being and consensus building. In general, the results suggest that trusting strangers does not affect well-being and consensus building. These results indicate that trust in most people is sufficient while trust in strangers is meaningless.