Social Trust and Attitudes Toward Science and Technology: An Analysis of Contemporary Social Values

Abstract

Social Trust is a key dimension in the process of interpretation of social change, scientific development and new technology. This paper explores the relationship between social trust and attitude towards scientific and technological development through the secondary data of World Values Survey Waves 6 and 7. This analysis covered 169,126 observations, and focused on indicators of generalized trust, interpersonal trust, scientific optimism and reservations about science and technology. Patterns and associations were explored by descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation, chi-square analysis and simple regression. Highest levels of trust were towards family members and persons personally known, and trust was significantly lower towards strangers, persons of another religion and persons of another nationality. The general attitude of the respondents towards science and technology was positive in terms of betterment of lifestyle, future opportunities and progress of the society. There was a small positive relationship between social trust and scientific optimism and less negative attitudes towards moral and social aspects of science. But the magnitude of the relationships observed were weak, meaning that the variance in people's technological attitudes explained by social trust was low. The results indicate that general mixtures of social values and cultural norms, institutional trust and people's experiences affect attitudes toward science and technology. These findings underscore the need for trust, communication and responsible governance to foster positive public participation in science and technology transitions.