Individual Religiosity, Religious Context, and the Creation of Social Trust in Germany

This contribution examines the role of religion as source of social trust. Going beyond the scope of the existing literature, I jointly evaluate the effect of individual religiosity and regional religious context by means of multilevel analysis. The results suggest that there is a double positive effect of Protestantism: Not only do Protestants tend to be more trusting, but a Protestant context also increases one’s trust – regardless of individual religious beliefs. Furthermore, while church attendance is a powerful predictor for social trust, a context effect for regional levels of devoutness could not be detected. Lastly, religious diversity is not shown to decrease social trust.