Examining the Relationship between Trust and Psychological Variables: Do psychological interventions enhance trust?

         
Author Name SEKIZAWA Yoichi (Senior Fellow, RIETI) / NOGUCHI Remi (Chiba University) / SO Mirai (Keio University) / YAMAGUCHI Sosei (National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry) / SHIMIZU Eiji (Chiba University)
Creation Date/NO. August 2016 16-J-050
Research Project Research Project on Mental Health from the Perspective of Human Capital 2
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Abstract

Enhancing trust is known to be good for the economy through bringing about positive impacts on economic growth and stabilizing the macroeconomy, etc. Previous studies show that trust is associated with happiness and mental health. We examine whether psychological interventions aimed at improving mental health would enhance the general trust scale (Yamagishi, 1998). Such interventions included internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy, emotion-focused mindfulness, and positive psychology exercises. The results show that the general trust scale improves significantly as compared with the control group only in the case of positive psychology intervention. Through panel data analyses, we reconfirm that a higher level of general trust is associated with lower levels of depression, anxiety, and negative affect, and with higher levels of positive affect.