Research On The Influence Of Religious Beliefs On Residents' Social Trust

Social trust is one of the necessary factors in many structures in modern social life,and it plays an important lubricant role in the social system.Fukuyama believes that trust comes from religion,tradition,customs,and culture,and is a kind of social capital.Therefore,exploring the effect of religious belief on social trust has gradually become an important issue in social science research.This article analyzes the data from the China Comprehensive Social Survey(CSS2017).First of all,the social trust will be operationalized into specific research indicators;using the principal component analysis method combined with social relationship intimacy theory to define specific types of social trust,identity trust,acquaintance trust and stranger trust,understand the specific influence of religious belief on the trust level of different confidence groups;further analyze the differences in social trust among residents of different religious beliefs in my country,and finally establish a model of the impact of religious belief on social trust.The study found that,religious beliefs have a significant impact on the degree of social trust of our residents:(1)Residents with religious beliefs have a lower level of social trust than those without religious beliefs.(2)The influence of religious beliefs on the level of social trust varies with the intimacy of social relationships.Specifically,residents with religious beliefs have higher trust in strangers than those without religious beliefs;religious beliefs have no obvious effect on the trust level of acquaintances;and there is no significant effect on this particular type of identity trust.(3)In different types of religious beliefs,the influence of different cohesion of religious groups on social trust is different.Specifically,Buddhist believers have a negative weakening effect on resident identity trust compared with non-religious believers,and have a significant positive effect on stranger trust;Christian/Catholic believers have more trust in residents than non-religious believers,it has a negative weakening effect;Islamic believers have a significant positive impact on the identity of residents compared to those without religious beliefs.In general,first,religious belief has a significant impact on residents’ social trust.Second,the influence of religious belief on residents’ social trust is related to the intimacy of social relationships.Third,the cohesion of religious belief affects the level of social trust of residents.