Drivers of Institutional Trust and Distrust: Exploring Components of Trustworthiness

Trust in government and media has declined in the past two decades. Assessing individual characteristics and institutional attributes associated with trust offers insight into this decline and is a first step toward rebuilding institutional trust. Researchers developed a new method to assess these concepts, using a survey of 1,008 respondents and a response scale that distinguishes among trust, lack of trust or distrust, and active distrust.