Hungarians are comparatively less trustful than the rest of the world. They are at the bottom of the list on the question of trust towards the media, but their trust in the government and public services is also very low according to the 2021 Ipsos Global Trustworthiness Monitor.
Comparing the different types of professions, people think that politicians and government ministers are the least trustworthy, even preceding ad executives, bankers, and business leaders.
In terms of sectors, technology (34%), pharmaceutical (31%), and banking (28%) are thought to be the most trustworthy, while social media (39%), the media (43%) and the government (50%) are the most untrustworthy in the view of respondents.
Ipsos’ representative survey was conducted in 29 countries around the world with samples consisting of approximately 1,000 individuals of each country.
These tendencies are very much reflected by Hungarians’ attitudes too, as they tend to be significantly less trustful than the average found in the study.
While loss of trust in politicians is a world phenomenon, Hungarians are below the global average. Besides several Latin American and some Eastern European countries (Poland, Romania), Hungary is at the bottom in terms of trustworthiness in government and public services.
In addition, responses to another question found that only 17% agree that the government keeps its promises, while 58% disagree.
Hungarians also proved the least trustful towards media companies: while 9% said they are trustworthy, 64% said they are not, bottoming the global average in both comparisons.
Furthermore, while only 10% of Hungarians believe that the media is reliable (Britain’s 9% is the only lower statistic) in this matter, 52% disagree with the statement.
Only 10% think that the social media sector is trustworthy, while 52% think it is not (the global average is 17% and 39% respectively). A similar trend can be seen when it comes to technology companies: 32% think they are trustworthy while 19% think they are not (the average being 34% and 19% respectively). On the other hand, Hungarians are less distrustful towards automotive companies as 27% of Hungarians think they are trustworthy, and 22% think they are not, while the global average is 27% and 23% respectively.
In regards to trust in the pharmaceutical industry, which has been in the spotlight over the last 18 months for obvious reasons, 23% of Hungarians think it is trustworthy, while 38% think it is not, both below the global average (31%, and 28% respectively).
In summary, Ipsos notes that, despite trends in some countries, and obvious difficulties caused by the pandemic, at this stage, the level of trust accorded to most professions is very close to the level they earned before anyone had even heard of COVID-19.
Featured photo illustration via pixabay.com