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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Sociol.
Sec. Sociological Theory
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2025.1504812
This article is part of the Research Topic The Erosion of Trust in the 21st Century: Origins, Implications, and Solutions View all articles
Generalized Trust as a Foundation for Online Trust: Findings from Austria, Greece, Poland, the Philippines, and South Africa
Provisionally accepted- University of Graz, Graz, Austria
In this paper, we examine the relationship between generalized trust and online trust to assess whether the latter is a distinct phenomenon or an extension of the former. For this purpose, we provide an overview of different approaches developed to explain trust and discuss their applicability to online trust. Our analysis is based on a nationally representative sample of Austrians aged 16 or older, collected as part of the latest International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) survey on "Digital Societies," as well as pretest data for this survey from Austria, Greece, Poland, the Philippines, and South Africa. Regression models considering indicators associated with a wide range of different approaches show that generalized trust is the strongest predictor of online trust. Hence, our findings suggest that online trust is not an independent concept but an extension of generalized trust, supporting the initial notion of generalized trust as a concept that transcends beyond personal relationships, now also into the digital world.
Keywords: Generalized trust, Online trust, Institutional trust, Internet users, ISSP
Received: 01 Oct 2024; Accepted: 07 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hadler, Vrečar and Schaffer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Markus Hadler, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
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