Vol. 24 No. 1 (2021)
Articles

The Trust Crisis: Threats and Opportunities for Coping With the Emergency Situation Caused By Covid-19

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  • Vesselina KACHAKOVA

Published 05/03/2022

Keywords

  • crisis,
  • trust,
  • society,
  • Bulgaria,
  • COVID-19

How to Cite

KACHAKOVA, V. (2022). The Trust Crisis: Threats and Opportunities for Coping With the Emergency Situation Caused By Covid-19. Psychological Research (in the Balkans), 24(1). Retrieved from https://journalofpsychology.org/index.php/1/article/view/20

Copyright (c) 2021 Psychological Research (in the Balkans)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The World Values Survey shows that over the past 30 years, people around the world have be come increasingly distrustful. Bulgarians rank first in lack of social trust in Europe, with over 80% of those surveyed generally not trusting other people, nor in mutual help and altruism between them. The crisis caused by COVID-19 in March 2020 poses new challenges to the Bulgarian society that may deepen the trust crisis, but they might also help to overcome it. The report presents two scenarios: the first presents the threats and the areas of conflict of deepening the trust crisis as a consequence of the health, and the follow ing economic and political crises caused by COVID-19; and the second presents an unconventional and more optimistic view of the pandemic as an opportunity to overcome particular aspects of the trust crisis.
The paper applies, on the one hand, personality theory, which views trustworthiness as a personality trait of the individual, and, on the other hand, societal theory, according to which public trust depends on levels of social division: income equality, ethnic homogeneity, degree of democratic government, political freedom, etc.
The analysis aims to draw attention to the topic of trust and to show its crucial importance in different areas of human relations.

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References

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