Trust is almost universally seen as a positive in society in that it binds together our interactions with others, underpins commerce and cooperation, and generally helps us function with one another effectively.
One might imagine this would be especially so during a pandemic in which we need to have faith that those around us are doing the right thing, just as we ourselves are. Research from Kellogg School of Management suggests the reality is a little bit more complicated. Indeed, rather than encouraging healthy behaviors, trust could actually encourage people to behave more recklessly.
The role of trust
The researchers used data from the US and Russia and it revealed that in ethnically diverse areas, where the researchers hypothesized less trust existed, residents were more likely to abide by social distancing and to abide by stay-at-home orders in order to stay safe.
It results in an unusual example of a time in which fear, rather than trust, was actually more effective in slowing the spread of the virus among communities.
The researchers hypothesized that trust often emerges when we feel those around us are similar to us. Therefore, they focused their attention on what is known as ethnic fractionalization, which is the probability that two random people in any given community will be from different ethnic groups.
Working together
While it may seem intuitive to assume that those in a more homogenous society would therefore care more about their community and do more to protect it, but this trust could then encourage people to go out during Covid as they assume that everyone who is infected will be at home, doing the right thing.
Of course, as we know, many asymptomatic carriers were infected without necessarily realizing it, and so nonetheless posed a risk to those around them.
By contrast, when societies are more diverse, the inherent trust may be somewhat lower, people may be more inclined to stay at home because they are less confident that those around them will be behaving appropriately. Fear rather than altruism is driving their behavior, but that fear helps to keep the community healthy.
Put to the test
The hypothesis was tested in Russia, where the outbreak began in Moscow before quickly spreading across the country. By using cellphone data the researchers were able to capture mobility around 302 cities between February and April 2020. They also used data to understand the ethnic fractionalization of each city.
By comparing changes in movement before and after the first case emerged in each city they were able to tell the impact of ethnic fractionalization. Before cases emerged, the movement was fairly similar in cities with both high and low ethnic fractionalization. Afterward, however, that was not the case, with mobility lower in more diverse cities.
Similar patterns emerged when the researchers examined the situation in the United States, although the higher levels of segregation in American cities meant the phenomenon was noticeably weaker than in Russia.
While the researchers accept that their analysis focused purely on the initial response of a city and that longer-term behaviors are underpinned and influenced by a range of complex factors, such as contact tracing, testing capacity, and trade-offs between economic recovery and public health in the case of Covid, all of which are likely to benefit from higher trust levels, they nonetheless believe their findings could help public health officials to tailor their messaging more effectively in the early periods of an outbreak.
For instance, in homogenous communities, social isolation could be encouraged via appeals to altruism, whereas in more diverse communities, an emphasis on more selfish reasons could be effective.
