Affective and Cognitive Dimensions of Building Interpersonal and Political Trust in Adolescence: A Qualitative Study

While political trust develops from an assessment of the performance of political institutions, interpersonal trust evolves in close interactions between individuals. Previous studies claim that both are based on affective and cognitive dimensions. However, their complexity and meaning are understudied, especially among adolescents and in different cultural and institutional contexts. The current research explores how early, middle, and late adolescents from Serbia, Italy, and Czechia built interpersonal and political trust during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted 18 online focus groups with 88 participants. The results of reflexive thematic analysis exposed various bases of affective (care, similarity, and reciprocity) and cognitive (knowledge, expertise, competence, and criticalness) dimensions of interpersonal and political trust building, respectively. Adolescents perceive the dimensions as separate and interconnected, allowing them to simultaneously trust and distrust the same individual or political figure. Beyond the crisis context, longitudinal research on the dimensions of political and interpersonal trust is necessary.