Anonymous wrote:Studies (other than this one) have shown that economic pressure leads people to become less "Agreeable." Agreeableness is a personality trait that measures how much people care about each other, how much they trust one another, how much they are willing to sacrifice for the common good.

The economy, since the 1980's, has become increasingly divided between the haves and have nots. Corporate consolidation means there are fewer opportunities outside the corporations - if you work for an Amazon, you have less control over your future than if you work for a small company. That's because there is more competition for every promotion and less chance for job advancement. You are essentially working in a factory, even if it doesn't feel like it. In the early 2000's, you could leave for a start-up but now there are fewer start-ups and it's far riskier to leave.

Economic inequality has also grown. The wealthy now hold the vast majority of money in this country. If you are wealthy, you may be getting wealthier - but not as wealthy as someone who is wealthier than you. If you are poor and especially if you are middle income, you are rapidly getting poorer.

All of that creates a feeling of competitiveness that naturally leads to less trust and less Agreeableness.

Our country has also become less homogeneous in terms of nationality and politically. It's not purely economics.

Studies (other than this one) have shown that economic pressure leads people to become less "Agreeable." Agreeableness is a personality trait that measures how much people care about each other, how much they trust one another, how much they are willing to sacrifice for the common good.

The economy, since the 1980's, has become increasingly divided between the haves and have nots. Corporate consolidation means there are fewer opportunities outside the corporations - if you work for an Amazon, you have less control over your future than if you work for a small company. That's because there is more competition for every promotion and less chance for job advancement. You are essentially working in a factory, even if it doesn't feel like it. In the early 2000's, you could leave for a start-up but now there are fewer start-ups and it's far riskier to leave.

Economic inequality has also grown. The wealthy now hold the vast majority of money in this country. If you are wealthy, you may be getting wealthier - but not as wealthy as someone who is wealthier than you. If you are poor and especially if you are middle income, you are rapidly getting poorer.

All of that creates a feeling of competitiveness that naturally leads to less trust and less Agreeableness.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is Biden’s fault.

+1

Four years of Biden/Harris gaslighting caused this situation.

It’s not even the situation! It’s not even what the poll says! God, we are doomed.

Anonymous wrote:This is Biden’s fault.

+1

Four years of Biden/Harris gaslighting caused this situation.

This is Biden’s fault.

Anonymous wrote:Clickbait article for low I.Q. type readers.

There's no demonstrable way to measure anything like that. Polls are meaningless.

News media (mainstream news) is one of the most toxic things in modern culture along with "social media".

This isn’t true. I mean none of this post is true. Polling is hard and expensive, and it’s getting harder. Because of the way our mail and phone behaviors have changed, pollsters have to increasingly rely on new methods for sampling and statistical methods for trying to correct for the bias we can see in the sample we get. That’s very hard to do, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing. Polling is a fairly young field having to shift away from its foundational methods. It’s not going to be perfect.

The other big problem is that people pay the most attention to political election polling which is very hard to do and expensive, and people who pay for it and do it have a lot of motives. And the elections we care about are so close that people become irrationally angry/suspicious about relatively small polling errors.

But we still hugely rely on polling from Census and places like Pew to know…basically everything we know about Americans as a whole.

I don’t think it’s really fair to call Pew “mainstream media.” Nobody smart, even in MAGAworld, would dismiss Pew polling. Maybe MAGA would do it as performance of fealty, but not if they were actually trying to understand anything. It’s very high quality and important for understanding long term trends and changes.

Omg this thread is a dcum classic.

The poll is a high quality, long term poll. The question is important and they’ve asked it for decades. And they provide a lot of useful context for why they think it’s worth asking. For free! Pew is a very important resource. Especially if Trump guts the Census bureau.

But, it doesn’t at all say what the OP says it does? Trust in the poll is up slightly from ten years ago in the poll. I can’t figure out what the OP is looking at.

So a bunch of people on dcum are just trashing Pew from ignorance and arguing about the OP’s headline which isn’t in the poll anyway?

Anonymous wrote:https://www.pewresearch.org/2025/05/08/americans-trust-in-one-another/

I'm not really surprised.

Unreadable animated garbage on mobile

I agree with this. I personally lost faith and trust in people during COVID emergence. I think trumpet has encouraged distrust and division for personal revenge.

Why would you trust this article?

Clickbait article for low I.Q. type readers.

There's no demonstrable way to measure anything like that. Polls are meaningless.

News media (mainstream news) is one of the most toxic things in modern culture along with "social media".

Trust no one ever.

I'd say it's less than that. I work with clients where we are supposed to be in the same team and the level of distrust is crazy.

It could be an appropriate amount of trust anyway.

Trust but verify.

I don’t think that makes us a worse society. Just not immediately trusting. Of course it’s nice to have some trust. (Which we do)

https://www.pewresearch.org/2025/05/08/americans-trust-in-one-another/

I'm not really surprised.