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Whether most people can be trusted or you can't be too careful in dealing with people. GSS respondents sometimes volunteer 'depends', which is left out of the base.
Latest: 72% answered “Can't be too careful” in GSS, 2024.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → mixed mode (2022).
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each column is one survey wave, evenly spaced rather than to scale in time; hover for exact shares.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → mixed mode (2022).
Shares of people whose answer maps onto these categories (non-answers and answers outside the scale are left out), because surveys differ in whether they offer “don’t know.” Each point is one survey wave at the middle of its field period. Lines from different surveys are never spliced together.
Groups differ from everyone by 10 points on average across all answers, in GSS.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → mixed mode (2022).
| Line | Question | Match | How answers map |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANES | Most people can be trusted or can't be too careful 1968:
Now here is something different. We have questions on other things besides politics.
ALL YEARS:
Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people? Caveat: ANES offers only the two answers. | equivalent | Can’t be too careful → Can't be too careful; Most people can be trusted → Most people can be trusted |
| GSS | Whether most people can be trusted A. Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people? | identical | Most people can be trusted → Most people can be trusted; Can't be too careful → Can't be too careful |
Groups differ from everyone by 9 points on average across all answers, in GSS.
Dashed lines mark changes in how interviews were done, which can shift answers: 1. GSS → mixed mode (2022).
Subgroup charts are picked automatically. Of every breakdown in the data (party, ideology, age, sex, race, education, income, region, religion, and community type), these two put their groups furthest from everyone’s answers: the gap is averaged across all answer categories and waves, with each group weighted by its share of respondents. Party and ideology count as one choice, so the second chart shows a different kind of split. Groups with an effective sample under 50 in a wave are left out of that wave, and changes run from each group’s first wave to its last.