The struggle against climate change will not be successful without a sufficient level of collective action. However, a necessary precondition for this is the existence of trust between people. The literature on trust and attitudes to climate change is displaying a growing tendency, and today the results of numerous empirical studies are available. Although, for the time being, on the basis of these studies, we only have a fragmented picture from which it appears that trust is having a significant effect on attitudes to climate change at both the micro and macro levels. The current paper tries to progress on this path and reveal the role of trust in various dimensions of the attitude to climate change using the data of the European Social Survey originating from 22 countries. The results show that while climate change beliefs and climate concern display no relationship with trust, neither on the individual or national level, trust does have a clear effect on the feeling of individual responsibility in connection with climate change and on support for the various policy measures. In addition, it is also investigated whether the effect of trust can be shown to exist in the relationships between climate concern and the feeling of individual responsibility, and climate concern and policy support. The results show that in both cases the relationship is stronger in those countries characterized by a higher level of social trust.

When exploring individual motivations of pro-climate behaviour, researchers investigate a multitude of factors, including the role of trust. Based on the empirical results obtained to date, the literature does not paint a uniform picture regarding the strength of the relationship between trust and environmental awareness. Using a large-scale, representative survey conducted in Hungary in June–July 2022, the present study—based on a data analysis—provides an answer to the question of how much the trust of the individual motivates the given individual to take pro-climate action. The results of the study show that most of the respondents cannot be viewed as pro-climate actors in spite of the fact that, in the meantime, they are concerned about climate change. Most of them are mistrustful of their fellow human beings, in other words they think that protecting the climate and taking action against climate change is not particularly important for others. One of the most important conclusions that may be drawn from the analyses is that trust influences both pro-environment/pro-climate action, and the intent to act. Research results confirm the general conclusion that supporting and increasing social trust would have a beneficial effect on more effective action against environmental challenges.

Inequalities in social capital are accepted today as important aspects of social and economic prosperity. This analysis utilizes global comparative data from the International Social Survey Program and finds substantial variation in the three types of social capital across social classes, in a cross-country perspective as well as among two types of societies, 10 high-trust and 13 low-trust societies. Social capitals show significant correlation with economic and social prosperity outcomes as well. The authors find that in more prosperous countries there is an abundance of bridging and linking social capital, whereas people in economically and socially less prosperous societies rely more on bonding social capital. The authors also present evidence on the class-related inequalities of social capitals: More advantageous class positions are associated with higher levels of bridging and linking social capital, whereas the lower classes hold higher levels of bonding social capital. Based on a multilevel analysis that brings together all of these aspects as well as a number of individual-level predictors, they conclude that their initial findings are reinforced with only minor exceptions.

The article examines the values of individual entrepreneurs in the European context. From among the various available value theories, it applies Shalom H. Schwartz’s framework of Basic Human Values. Schwartz distinguishes 10 values that are dynamically interrelated with each other along several shared dimensions. Two main dimensions (self-centered and collective) and four categories (openness to change, self-enhancement, conservation, self-transcendence) of values can thus be distinguished. The empirical part of the study starts with a cluster analysis to differentiate entrepreneurial groups according to the relative importance of self-centered values, before turning to values with collective connotations in order to draw more comprehensive profiles of the identified clusters. One of the main findings of this study is that more than two-thirds of Eastern European entrepreneurs cannot be characterized by normatively framed entrepreneurial value preferences—they are actually entrepreneurs without entrepreneurship.

Trust towards unknown others is a fundamental issue in trust research. Actually, it can be said that this problematization is a generative source for the whole scientific framing of trust, regardless of its specific perspective, whether it is a psychological, situational, institutional or structural-cultural interpretation. This means that the notion of ‘generalized trust’ is definitely a core concept and a reference point for all research agendas in the field of trust studies. However, this status of the notion is heavily criticized both from a theoretical and empirical point of view. The current paper tries to contribute to these academic discourses by proposing an extended reading of the concept of trust towards unknown others. By doing this, the paper suggests that the focus cannot be only on the aspect of how one perceives others’ trustworthiness, which is measured by the so-called ‘standard trust variable’; it should also be considered how the given agent relates herself/himself to other people’s otherness. Therefore, the argument simply claims that trusting people in general means being open to others’ otherness. If this link cannot be explored, then trust in unknown others is constrained and limited. Using data obtained from the last two rounds of the European Social Survey, the paper presents a 31-country-based comparative statistical analysis realized on both macro- and micro-levels in order to find out whether the above-described theoretical linkage is verifiable or not.

The paper presents a multi-theoretical argument by linking the mid-range concepts of risk and trust to some core, classical approaches of rural sociology. The main assumption is that risk and trust, two essential features of social interactions in late modernity are influenced by the rural and urban forms of coexistence. Based on the typological grand theories of early rural sociology, countryside-like milieu reduces risks, and by this, supports the individual abilities of showing trust. The paper analyzes this assumption on European countries’ data through a quantitative empirical inquiry. The findings do not strengthen the basic hypothesis which conclusion suggests that the classical typological approach of rural sociology should be seen through a critical lens – just as the new theoretical interpretations from the field recommend it.