When it comes to trusting other people, some people are backing off, according to a new survey -- and one expert says it's no surprise.
A poll from Pew Research shows the number of people who responded that they would say, "Most people can be trusted," is down considerably, from 46% in 1972 to 34% in 2018, and there appear to be plenty of reasons why.
One may be the skewed political approach of most mainstream news media, which tend to lean in one ideological direction or another, and so help exacerbate an already critical divide among the left, right and center.
And then there's the obvious fact that people, in this politically divided culture, don't talk to each nearly as much as they did 30 years ago or more.
And if they do talk, maybe they don't listen.
But according to relational trainer and founder of the website OutcomesOnly.com Julie Nise, you can blame the screens, too.
"If all you do is look in your screens -- whatever they might be -- and that's how you're doing your interacting during the day, then of course you're not going to trust anything but your screen," she says.
Trust is something personal, so of course some people are more trusting than others, but the poll indicates people with more years of education or who make more money are generally more trusting.
"I don't know that education has a lot to do with it, I tend not to trust people with a higher level of education, personally," she says.
But among the results, it does make some sense that people tend to trust others more as they get older.
"It would sort of make sense that you trust more when you get older simply because you've had more experience and hopefully you'll be able to discern who's trustworthy and who's not," she adds with a chuckle.
But if you look at the poll closely, it can be summed up easily even if the conclusion may be oversimplified.
It's about rapport.
As Ms. Nise says, "If you use the acronym of the word itself, Really All People Prefer Others Resembling Themselves."
"Yes, it's easy to have a rapport with someone you perceive as being similar to you -- and not so much the other way."