Association between social capital and sleep duration among rural older adults in China

Objective Sleep disturbances are great challenges to older adults’ health promotion. The study tested gender differences in the association between different dimensions of social capital and self-reported sleep duration of Chinese rural older adults. Design The data of rural older adults were extracted from a national cross-sectional survey of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) and analyzed in this study. Setting CLHLS covered 23 provinces in China. Participants The 6552 rural respondents aged ≥65 years old were involved. Main outcome measures Generalized trust, informal social participation, formal social participation and social support were used to assess social capital. Self-reported sleep duration was measured as health outcome. Results Low level of generalized trust had harmful effect on insufficient sleep (AOR 1.110, 95% CI 1.018-1.324), and having no formal or informal social participation was significantly positively associated with long sleep (AORformal 1.424, 95% CI 1.007-2.013; AORinformal 1.241, 95% CI 1.016-1.516). Rural older female adults with no emotional social support had higher odds of insufficient sleep (AOR 1.502, 95% CI 1.258-1.978). Meanwhile, both informal and formal social participation showed inverse association with long sleep for females. Conclusions This study found the relationship between social capital, sleep duration and the gender differences in Chinese rural older adults. More targeted sleep disturbance interventions could be taken in social capital of rural older adults, and gender differences should be considered when making social capital-embedded health promotion policies and interventions.

Suicidal Ideation during the COVID-19 Pandemic among A Large-Scale Iranian Sample: The Roles of Generalized Trust, Insomnia, and Fear of COVID-19

The novel 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is still not under control globally. The pandemic has caused mental health issues among many different cohorts and suicidal ideation in relation to COVID-19 has been reported in a number of recent studies. Therefore, the present study proposed a model to explain the associations between generalized trust, fear of COVID-19, insomnia, and suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic among a large-scale Iranian sample. Utilizing cluster sampling with multistage stratification, residents from Qazvin province in Iran were invited to participate in the present study. Adults aged over 18 years (n = 10,843; 6751 [62.3%] females) completed ‘paper–and-pencil’ questionnaires with the assistance of a trained research assistant. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to understand the associations between generalized trust, fear of COVID-19, insomnia, and suicidal ideation. Slightly over one-fifth of the participants (n = 2252; 20.8%) reported suicidal ideation. Moreover, the SEM results indicated that generalized trust was indirectly associated with suicidal ideation via fear of COVID-19 and insomnia. Furthermore, generalized trust was not directly associated with suicidal ideation. The proposed model was invariant across gender groups, age groups, and participants residing in different areas (i.e., urban vs. rural). Generalized trust might reduce individuals’ suicidal ideation during the COVID-19 pandemic period via reduced levels of fear of COVID-19 and insomnia. Healthcare providers and policymakers may want to assist individuals in developing their generalized trust, reducing fear of COVID-19, and improving insomnia problems to avoid possible suicidal behaviors.

Valid and Reliable Measures of Generalized Trust: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey and Behavioral Experiment

Across the social sciences, generalized trust has been one of the most frequently examined constructs since researchers first introduced measures of it in the 1950s. Despite its significance, there is growing consensus that conventional measures of generalized trust are prone to measurement invalidity and non-equivalence, which places sociological knowledge about generalized trust in serious doubt. In this article, I advance trust research in sociology by (1) refining two new self-report measures of generalized trust—the Stranger Face Trust scale (SFT) and the Imaginary Stranger Trust scale (IST)—and (2) assessing their empirical performance on a nationally representative probability sample (N = 1,264). I compare the reliability and validity of SFT, IST, and traditional measures of generalized trust across a number of measurement validation tests (convergent validity, discriminant validity, known-groups validity, and predictive validity). Results suggest that SFT provides the most accurate and consistent measure of generalized trust. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings for sociological knowledge.

Liberalism

Chapter 8 argues that liberal values of freedom and equality not only form the basis for social justice (as argued in Chapter 4), but shared liberal values also provide a social basis for trust, solidarity, and egalitarian redistribution. More specifically, it is argued that shared liberal values have positive institutional, distributive, and direct value effects on social cohesion. Rawls made similar claims, but here a more thorough argument is provided. First, shared liberal values facilitate electoral support for universal, social democratic welfare states, which are conducive to institutional and generalized trust and redistributive solidarity. Second, shared liberal values facilitate electoral support for egalitarian redistribution, where socio-economic equality tends to promote trust and solidarity. And third, shared liberal values have direct value effects, where people who share such values tend to have a more inclusive conception of their in-group, and extend their trust and solidarity to, for example, immigrants.

An Empirical Comparison of Four Generalized Trust Scales: Test–Retest Reliability, Measurement Invariance, Predictive Validity, and Replicability

The Stranger Face Trust scale (SFT) and Imaginary Stranger Trust scale (IST) are two new self-report measures of generalized trust that assess trust in strangers—both real and imaginary—across four trust domains. Prior research has established the reliability and validity of SFT and IST, but a number of measurement validation tests remain. Across three separate studies, I assess the test–retest reliability, measurement invariance, predictive validity, and replicability of SFT and IST, with the misanthropy scale (MST) and generalized social trust scale (GST) serving as benchmarks. First, tests of internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and longitudinal measurement invariance established that all four generalized trust scales were acceptably reliable, with SFT and IST yielding greater overall reliability than MST and GST. Second, tests of multiple group measurement invariance revealed that SFT and IST were equivalent across gender, race, education, and age groups, while MST and GST were non-equivalent across the same sociodemographic groups. Third, an investment game established the predictive validity of SFT and MST, with IST and GST yielding poor predictive validity. Fourth, tests of factor structure and measurement invariance indicated that all four generalized trust scales replicated across samples. The present findings bolster the validity, reliability, and measurement equivalence of SFT and IST, while illustrating the compromised validity and measurement non-equivalence of MST and GST. Implications for the measurement of generalized trust are discussed.

The Sharing Economy and Social Capital: The Fictional Expectations of Sociality in a Time Bank

This article looks at time banking ­– a system of exchange in which people trade services with one another using time instead of money as currency. Time banking is framed from a social work perspective as a social innovation that contributes to poverty alleviation and increasing inclusion. However, most such organizations fail to institutionalize as care providers and fail within the first three years. In this paper, I discuss a rare success story—a time bank in Nizhny Novgorod, the fourth largest city in Russia—which has been functioning for over 15 years and positioned itself as a non-charitable organization. I engage with sharing economy studies—a growing but ambiguous field—to explain the success of the time bank in Nizhny Novgorod. Research in the sharing economy has mostly concentrated on two extreme cases: business-to-customer operations or grassroots communities practicing radical alternatives to market exchange. The case studies have been united by an assumption that sharing economy organizations would generate social capital. However, there has been limited evidence to support this claim. In this article, I aim to test this hypothesis and explore whether the informal networks, norms of reciprocity and trust that are fostered among members of the Nizhny Novgorod time bank are the factors that explain the sustainability of this association. The study is informed by 22 in-depth interviews with the gatekeepers and members of this community. In the interviews, I paid attention to the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants and the structure of their social capital; the characteristics of the mode of exchange practiced in the community (the volume, direction, and range of services, the relatedness to professional activities and other spheres of life); their value set and worldview (egalitarianism, altruism, justice); and indicators of generalized trust. Results revealed that time bankers do not tend to create strong and sustainable relationships outside of the framework of the exchange. I put forward the following explanatory hypothesis: the calculativeness of time bankers, the market-driven valuations of ‘egalitarian’ service exchange and a unilateral attitude to the exchange are in conflict with a longing for Gemeinschaft—a community with strong bonding interdependence based on the norms of mutuality. This association failed to provide the conditions for generalized trust to emerge. The attempt to simultaneously create a tightly bonded community, but still answer the needs of the digital age resulted in a pastiche of a sharing economy platform. Beyond the case at hand, this study theorizes the rhetoric and reality of the sharing economy by summarizing the grounds for the expectations of generating social capital and explains why certain expectations could not be met.

The Relationship Between Social Class and Generalized Trust: The Mediating Role of Sense of Control

The success and well-being theory of trust holds that higher social class is associated with higher generalized trust, and this association has been well documented in empirical research. However, few studies have examined the processes that might explain this link. This study extends this assumption to explore the mediating mechanism in the association. We hypothesized that social class would positively predict generalized trust, and the relationship would be mediated by people’s sense of control. Self-report data were collected from 480 adults (160 males, 320 females; ages 18–61) who participated through an online crowdsourcing platform in China. The results of multiple regression and mediation analyses supported the hypothesized model. This research provides further support for the success and well-being theory of trust, and builds on it by identifying greater sense of control as a possible explanation for the link between high social class and generalized trust. Limitations and possible future research are discussed.

Trust and Social Inequality: The Case of Russia

The article focuses on the study of relationship between trust and social inequality in Russian society. The methodological framework is an integrated multidisciplinary approach which combines sociological and economic theories. The research is based on official statistics and social surveys of international, national, and regional levels. The analysis shows that in Russia there is still excessive inequality (since 2003, the fund ratio has not dropped below 15 times, and the Ginny index is below 0.4). Using the method of two-dimensional distributions, we assessed the impact of social inequality on the level of generalized trust in Russia as a whole and the Vologda Oblast in particular. It was revealed that the Russian society is characterized by a low level of social trust and its increasing trends cannot be predicted. The existing mistrust is compounded by the stratification of society, persistence of significant differences in the level of well-being of the population, and the lack of mutual understanding between the poor and the rich. The article confirms the fact that the level of generalized trust depends on the economic component: with a decrease in well-being of the population, the level of mistrust grows. We conclude that the variables of inequality and trust form a vicious circle with poles of inversely proportional impact on each other. The practical task is to find a solution to the current situation. As a further research prospect, the article indicates the development of science-based proposals in solving the problem of the relationship between social inequality and public trust.