This Infographic Reveals Who You Really Trust

Reader's Digest EditorsUpdated: May. 22, 2018

Reader’s Digest asked Americans who in their lives would be most likely to return $100 they had lost. The answers varied quite a bit, both by gender and geography.

Whom do you trust more: a coworker or your next-door neighbor? It might depend on where you live, how old you are, or your gender. We sought to understand more about America’s falling levels of generalized trust and started by looking at who we trust in our everyday lives. (The percentage of us who believe that “most people can be trusted” dropped from 56% in 1968 to about a third in 2016, according to the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies.)

In this Reader’s Digest/Ipsos Connect survey, we asked 5,500 Americans: “If you lost $100 by mistake and it was found by someone in your life on this list, do you trust that he or she would return it to you? (Scale of 1-5 with 4 and 5 being “yes”)

In this infographic, Reader’s Digest breaks down the key findings.

Jose de la rosa/rd.com, the noun project

To read the story by Josh C. Morgan that inspired this poll, go here.

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Originally Published: May 14, 2018

About the Survey:

These are findings from an Ipsos Connect study conducted for Reader’s Digest from October 23 to November 8, 2017. For the survey, a sample of 5,502 U.S. adults were interviewed online. The precision of online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points. The data was weighted to U.S. Census data by age, gender, income, and geography. Statistical margins of error are not applicable to online surveys. All sample surveys may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error and measurement error. Where figures do not sum to 100, this is due to the effects of rounding.

Trust in selected occupations was determined by the question “If you lost $100 by mistake and it was found by someone from your life in the list below, how much do you trust that they would return it to you?” 18 different occupations were listed with each respondent being shown 12 of the 18.  Respondents also could answer N/A for any that were not applicable.  The final ranking was determined by the top 2 box percentages on a five-point scale.