Does Success Strengthen Trust? the Role of Community Improvement Efforts in Building Neighborhood Trust

Background/Purpose:  Research on social capital generates significant focus and debate, especially as it relates to the field of community development.  Although there is relative consensus that social networks are a key element of social capital, whether trust is a component of social capital or a distinct concept continues to be contested.  This paper contributes to the literature by testing variables associated with trust in neighbors and community development efforts. It is commonly assumed that successful attempts to make neighborhood improvements will increase levels of trust among residents, which will in turn strengthen relationships and lead to additional community development improvements. However, as yet there is little evidence to support these assumptions. This paper tests the hypothesis that individuals who have worked with neighbors to facilitate a community improvement and who view those efforts as successful will have higher levels of trust in their neighbors than those who view the efforts as unsuccessful.

Methods: This study draws on the United States Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy Survey, a nationally-representative survey, using a subsample of individuals who responded that they had experience working with neighbors to fix or improve something in the neighborhood (N=174).  Respondents were asked to rate their level of trust in a series of groups on a scale from 0 (“cannot be trusted at all”) to 10 (“can be trusted a lot”).  These groups included neighbors, members of clubs or associations, local government, co-workers, strangers, and general trust.  Trust in neighbors was the dependent variable, while other measures were independent variables.  They were also asked to rate the success of their most recent attempt “to fix or improve something in your neighborhood” on a four-point scale.  For analysis, this was converted to a dichotomous variable (1=successful, 0=unsuccessful). A multiple linear regression was calculated to predict trust in neighbors, based on the variables discussed above as well as controls for demographics, social involvement, civic involvement, and other forms of trust.

Results:  A significant regression equation was found (F,(9,164)=29.08, p.<.001), and the model accounts for nearly half the variance in the level of trust in neighbors (R-squared = 0.49).  Certain other forms of trust seem to generalize to trust in neighbors, as trust in people that are in the same club or association (b=0.30, p<0.001), trust in local government (b=0.28, P<0.001), and trust in co-workers (b=0.17, p<0.05) account for a large amount of variance.  Other measures of trust, such as generalized trust and whether people overall are trustworthy, were not statistically significant.  Perceptions of success related to previous attempts to work with neighbors were inversely related to trust, so that individuals who believed the effort to be successful viewed neighbors as less trustworthy (b=-0.15, p <0.01). 

Conclusions and Implications:  These findings suggest that a high level of trust in neighbors and other associates may not be a key component of successful community development efforts.  This has important practice implications for the process of community development initiatives, especially regarding recruitment of community development stakeholders and activists. Other implications for community development work are discussed.