Socialized to (Dis)trust? A Panel Study into the Origins of Dispositional Institutional Trust

A longstanding argument in the field of institutional trust reads that trust is the outcome of a process of socialization. This approach suggests that institutional trust may be understood as a set disposition that is shaped during one’s impressionable years (i.e., adolescence and pre-adulthood) and no longer systematically updated during an iterative process afterwards. Consequently, this disposition forms a baseline around which trust judgments tend to vary. Yet, this process of socialization to (dis)trust has not been studied directly. To fill this gap, this paper tests two rivalling models derived from cultural sociology. The active updating model implies that attitude baselines continue to be updated durably throughout a lifetime, whereas the settled dispositions model suggests that these attitudes remain relatively stable over a lifetime: longitudinal variation can be understood as random noise to the model. To test these models, this paper employs two panel data sets in the Netherlands (2018–2022) that measure trust in politics and other institutions annually: the LISS panel (covering the adult population) and the Dutch Adolescent Panel on Democratic Values (covering students in secondary education from age 12). We find evidence supporting the impressionable years hypothesis: while political trust is still subject to repeated updating among adolescents, it has settled into a disposition among adults. As such, our study highlights the relevance of socialization processes for the formation of institutional trust (during adolescence), as well as the relevance of a dispositional root of public attitudes (during adulthood). These findings have important implications for our understanding of both the determinants and consequences of institutional trust.