Small Grant For Exploratory Research: Crisis And Confidence

George Washington University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This project, submitted under the Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) program, will study the effect of the recent terrorist events and subsequent American actions on the nature and structure of trust in political and social institutions in the United States. The researchers are undertaking a two-wave national panel survey designed to capture the effects of information on the levels of various forms of trust and the relationships among these forms of trust. The research offers the unique opportunity to study public trust in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks and assess the effect of a national crisis on the dynamics of trust. These data will be of value to scholars interested in the topic and also to decision-makers trying to differentiate between various forms of trust and how it rises or falls as new information becomes available to the public. The researchers will be able to gauge how public trust changes over time based on the actions taken by the U.S. government in tandem with changes in the perceived threat.