Social Trust as a Product of Religious Norms and Ethical Values

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Abstract

It is said that trust and common values are interrelated, and that play role in social trust and social cohesion. In this article we wish to find out if religiosity, social acceptability and observance of morality as common values in the society, determine the social trust. The study is descriptive and causative and the method is survey. The population that sample of study is taken from consists of the students, teacher and other employees of the Azad University in Tehran. The sample is drawn through allocation random sampling. A questionnaire is used to collect data from 1212 individuals in 2010. The findings indicate that 32% of the respondents have high social trust. Though only 14% had high morality and observed ethical values, yet 84% had a high level social acceptance. The citizens’ religiosity was 74% which is high too. The findings indicate that social trust has significant strong and direct relationship with three variables: religiosity has the highest impact, and the other influencing factors are respectively, social acceptance and observance of morality. Religiosity influences social trust besides other influences

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