Researchers are worried that the trust Virginia has in society is eroding.
The Virginia Trust Index might sound academic. But at its core, the metric from Roanoke College reveals a disturbing post-pandemic reality – views about honesty and reliability are being scarred.
Alice Louise Kassens is a senior analyst with the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College.
"Now we've kind of plateaued at a level that's below the value we were observing before the pandemic," Kassens says. "So, our question for the future is have we had this permanent reduction in trust in one another, what we’re calling a scarring effect. Or will we eventually go back to where we were before?"
The forensic details of the scarring effect might be revealed by the presidential election and its aftermath.
"I'll be interested in seeing what happens to trust after the presidential election because certainly during elections I think you look at your neighbors a little differently if they think different from you and that could impact the trust index," Kassens says. "But does that taper off as we move further into 2025?"
Kassens says the potential long-term damage of permanently scarred trust would be that contracts would take longer to negotiate, productivity would fall and economic growth would deteriorate.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
