Trust is considered by many to be a fundamental indicator. In fact, although on a superficial level, trust may seem largely subjective, a datum with little statistical relevance, it is instead a important factor underpinning social wellbeing, including economic development. In light of this, qualitative/quantitative research is increasingly focusing on statistics pertaining to people’s trust in various categories of professionals. The value of these studies lies in the new perspective they offer for interpreting trends in today’s society.
A recent Ipsos study compiled the Global Trustworthiness Index for 2022. From this research, which involved more than 20,000 people in 28 countries all over the world, we can see that the top three most trusted professionals are still doctors, scientists, and teachers (as in the 2021 survey). In fact, when interviewees were asked which people they trusted most, these categories of professionals garnered 59%, 57% and 52% of responses respectively. Likewise, the least trustworthy at the bottom of the list were once again politicians (12%), government ministers (16%) and advertising executives (18%), the same as last year.
These data can also be reconfigured to reflect “net trust:” the difference between interviewees who trust a given group of professionals and those who don’t. In this case, doctors have the highest net trust score at 44% (i.e. 15% of respondents consider doctors untrustworthy), while politicians come in last at -52%. (This number is negative because people who don’t trust politicians (64%) outnumber those who do.)
Compared to previous years, which saw a consolidated growth trend in trust in the professionals at the top of the ranking, the 2022 data seem to run counter to this trend. Doctors, who are still the most trustworthy, slid by five percentage points (from 64% in 2021 to 59% in 2022), while the trustworthiness of both scientists and teachers dipped by 4% and 3% (respectively 61% and 55% in the previous survey). Essentially, at a global level, trust in these roles has reset at pre-pandemic levels, with more sizeable drops in Italy, Poland, Hungary and in the US. Moreover, the untrustworthiness of politicians and government ministers (which was tendentially diminishing until 2021) has ticked up again (from 62% to 64%, and from 53% to 55% respectively), while this number for advertising executives jumped by six percentage points.
Worth noting are certain statistics broken down by country. In India and Sweden, the most trustworthy people are members of the armed forces; ranked second in Germany and Sweden are the police. As for professionals considered least trustworthy, in Mexico and Chile (like in most South American countries), politicians claim this title, followed by members of the clergy in Chile and public servants in Mexico, both categories considered untrustworthy by 64% of respondents in their home countries.
Levels of trust in Italy, albeit lower than the average for almost all professional categories, can be considered in line with the overall results of the study, yet there are certain specific cases and exceptions that are worthy of note. First of all, compared to 2021, trust in doctors and scientists has seen a downturn in Italy more than in other countries in the research panel, with a significant decrease of 13 percentage points for scientists and 11 points for doctors. Teachers saw a less dramatic drop, as their trustworthiness lost 8 points, slipping to 43%. The final surprising finding is one that Italy shares with Poland and Malesia, that is, the third least trusted category of professionals (rather than advertising executives): members of the clergy.
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