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Close Social Relationships20259 min read
How Your Childhood Shapes Your Trust in the World
Childhood predictors of perceptions of social trust across 22 countries in the global flourishing study
- By
- Kim, Young-Il et al.
- Participants
- 202,898
- Countries
- 22
- Journal
- Scientific Reports
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41598-024-78201-z
§1
Key Takeaways
01
In a pooled analysis across 22 countries, positive childhood experiences—including the quality of the relationship with one's mother and father, childhood socioeconomic status, childhood health, and childhood religious service attendance—were associated with greater levels of social trust perceptions in adulthood.
02
Experiences of physical or sexual abuse during childhood were associated with lower levels of social trust perceptions in adulthood.
03
The strength of the associations between childhood predictors and adult social trust perceptions varied substantially across the 22 countries, suggesting that diverse cultural and societal contexts shape how early life experiences relate to later social trust.
§2
Why It Matters
This research matters because it shifts the conversation about social trust from adult circumstances to childhood roots. If trust in others begins forming early — through family warmth, financial security, health, and community participation — then interventions aimed at improving adult trust may be arriving too late. The findings suggest that supporting families, protecting children from abuse, and reducing childhood poverty could have long-lasting effects that extend well into adulthood, shaping how people relate to strangers and communities decades later.
A stable family environment acts as an incubator for social trust, a critical ingredient for a thriving and prosperous society.
The cross-cultural variation is equally important. It tells us that no single policy or program will work everywhere. What strengthens trust in one country may have little effect in another. For governments, educators, and public health leaders, this means that efforts to build trust must be tailored to local cultural contexts rather than imported as one-size-fits-all solutions. Understanding these differences is a first step toward helping more people grow up ready to trust — and be trusted — in the world they inherit.
This research matters because it shifts the conversation about social trust from adult circumstances to childhood roots. If trust in others begins forming early — through family warmth, financial security, health, and community participation — then interventions aimed at improving adult trust may be arriving too late. The findings suggest that supporting families, protecting children from abuse, and reducing childhood poverty could have long-lasting effects that extend well into adulthood, shaping how people relate to strangers and communities decades later.
The cross-cultural variation is equally important. It tells us that no single policy or program will work everywhere. What strengthens trust in one country may have little effect in another. For governments, educators, and public health leaders, this means that efforts to build trust must be tailored to local cultural contexts rather than imported as one-size-fits-all solutions. Understanding these differences is a first step toward helping more people grow up ready to trust — and be trusted — in the world they inherit.
A stable family environment acts as an incubator for social trust, a critical ingredient for a thriving and prosperous society.
§3
The Story
Do you tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, or do you keep your guard up? Researchers have long suspected that our willingness to trust others is formed early in life, but they rarely had the data to test it — especially across different cultures. This study changed that by surveying over 200,000 adults in 22 countries on six continents, asking them to reflect on their childhood experiences and their beliefs about how much people in their country trust one another.
A safe and supportive childhood doesn't just build a happy kid; it helps build an adult who can believe in the good of others.
The findings paint a clear picture: warm family relationships matter. People who recalled having a good relationship with their mother or father growing up were more likely to believe that most people can be trusted. The same was true for those who grew up in financially comfortable households, those who were in excellent or very good health as children, and those who attended religious services regularly around age 12. On the flip side, people who experienced physical or sexual abuse in childhood tended to perceive lower levels of social trust in adulthood.
What makes this study especially powerful is that it went beyond Western countries. By including nations like Kenya, Indonesia, Brazil, and the Philippines, the researchers found that these patterns are not universal. In some countries, a good relationship with one's father showed a strong link to adult trust, while in others the connection was weak or even pointed the opposite direction. The strength of every childhood predictor varied substantially from country to country, suggesting that culture and society play a major role in how early experiences translate into later attitudes about trust. In short, the seeds of trust — or distrust — appear to be planted long before adulthood, often within the walls of our childhood homes.
But the soil those seeds land in differs depending on where in the world you grow up.
Figures
1.17x
Excellent Childhood Health and Trust
Individuals who reported excellent health during childhood were 1.17 times more likely to perceive high social trust in adulthood compared to those who rated their childhood health as good.
0.94:1
Childhood Abuse and Social Trust
Experiences of physical or sexual abuse during childhood were associated with a lower likelihood of perceiving social trust in adulthood, with a risk ratio of 0.94 compared to those without such experiences.
73%
Cross-Country Variation in Mother-Child Effects
Approximately 73% of the variation across countries in the association between mother-child relationship quality and adult social trust perceptions was attributable to true heterogeneity rather than sampling variability.
1.16x
Weekly Religious Attendance in Childhood
Individuals who attended religious services at least weekly during childhood were 1.16 times more likely to perceive high social trust in adulthood compared to those who never attended.
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Reader Questions
Research Details
& Citation
Chat with this paperPublished
2025
Journal
Scientific Reports
Participants
202,898
Countries
22
Cite this paper
Kim, Y.-I., VanderWeele, T. J., & Johnson, B. R. (2025). Childhood predictors of perceptions of social trust across 22 countries in the global flourishing study. Scientific Reports, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-78201-zTags
trustchildhoodfamilyrelationship-qualityabusecross-cultural
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