Building Trust in Governmental and Educational Authorities in Adolescence: A Comparison of Early, Middle, and Late Adolescents in Four European Countries

Research on procedural justice shows that giving voice to citizens or experts, providing transparent explanations, and acting predictably fosters trust in authorities. Yet little is known about how these processes operate during adolescence. It remains unclear whether these aspects of authority behavior are relevant to trust-building at the onset of adolescence and how their importance evolves with age. This study reports findings from a cross-national vignette experiment involving 2383 adolescents aged 11–12 (31% of the sample), 14–15 (33%), and 18–19 (36%) from Germany (n = 608, 55% female), Italy (n = 426, 44% female), Czechia (n = 724, 51% female), and Serbia (n = 625, 60% female). Results showed that voice and transparency in rationale were the strongest predictors of trust in both school and governmental authorities. In most cases, these effects did not vary significantly with age. Even early adolescents were responsive to procedural justice aspects. Consistent age-related moderations appeared only in the post-communist countries of Czechia and Serbia, where the effects of voices and transparency of rationale on trust increased with age. This suggests that contextual factors can shape adolescents’ developing capacity to evaluate authority behavior. These findings show that adolescents already have the capacity to value procedural justice from early adolescence. However, the delayed effects in post-communist countries underscore the importance of the socio-political context, which may shape the opportunity to learn and apply these procedural justice judgments when forming trust in authorities.