Sociological explanation of social trust status and its influencing factors (Case Study: Dehdasht City)

Social trust, as one of the most fundamental issues facing today's societies, is the foundation of social relations and it has been discussed in the social science literatures. In this terms of "fundamental trust", "interpersonal trust", "generalized trust", and "institutional trust". In this regards we could say that interpersonal trust is more prevalent in traditional societies, though, generalized and institutional trust are seem mostly in modern societies. In the present study, quantitative and questionnaire survey method were used to investigate the status of social trust and its associated factors in Dehdasht city (as considered a transitional city). The sample size of this study was 382 people who were selected by multistage cluster sampling scheme. The results due to structural equation modeling, show that overall social trust was below average and people's interpersonal trust was higher than generalized and institutional trust. Also, the inferential findings showed that social participation has a positive and significant effect on social trust while Anomie and deprivation have had a significant and negative effect on social trust. However, although mental status did not directly affect social trust, through a sense of deprivation, it has had indirectly a significant and positive effect on social trust.