What Drives a Contemporary Lack of Trust in Government and Science in the United States?

Recent surveys suggest that Americans’ trust in institutions has decreased, including trust in science and government. Such trends could have significant effects on the health of democracy, scientific advancement, information consumption, and more. However, trust can stem from different considerations. In some cases, a lack of trust arises from ill will or suspicion over integrity, that is, concerns about immorality or wrong doing. It can also arise from pessimism about competence. These different causes elicit distinct reactions, which could motivate varied reactions toward groups that are not trusted. Using multiple original surveys of US adults (total N = 3,894), including an original experiment, we find that seeing scientists and politicians as morally bad - but not as incompetent - leads to lower trust in these individuals. This suggests that perceptions of moral wrongdoing are stronger drivers of lower political and scientific trust in recent years, compared to perceived incompetence. These results hold in correlational analysis, although the effects vary somewhat by partisanship. Together, these results have important implications for understanding the driver of major ills that threaten the functioning of society and government.