Dimensions of social trust in Turkey

In order for a society to continue its existence in harmony and order, its individuals must be able to trust themselves and other members of the society in which they live, as well as the institutions that maintain the social structure. A person seeks the assurance that one will not be harmed by their close environment, people in general and the institutions one is a part of, and is in the establishment of this assurance. For this purpose, this study aims to understand the social manifestations of specialized, institutional and generalized trust, to determine its measurement levels, and to produce inferences on its socio-cultural foundation. In this study, the universe of which is Türkiye, 1084 people from 12 provinces in the Statistical Regional Units Classification (NUTS) Level 1 were interviewed in order to represent the universe with a 95% confidence interval and 0.3 margin of error. When the data obtained are analyzed, there is a decrease in trust from the center to the periphery in Türkiye. Dimensions of social trust presents an appearance as high level of specialized trust, medium level of institutional trust and low level of generalized trust. Most trusted private individuals and groups are family, close friends and long-known people. The most trusted institutions are army, police and the state in general. The most trusted generalized people and groups are people with higher levels of education, the elderly and the young. The safest shelter in Türkiye is the family. While trust in the family is represented at a high level in all variables, family is also the strongest source of trust in Türkiye. Compared to people with university or higher education level, young people between the ages of 18-32 compared to other generations and compared to married people, it is seen that single people generally have a cautious attitude towards trusting people, groups and institutions. It is thought that the research can contribute to the literature in terms of presenting a general framework for the first time in trust studies in Türkiye and revealing the dimensions of social trust and insecurity.