Assessment of interpersonal trust of Poles by the principal components analysis and log-linear modeling

Interpersonal trust in Poland is found to be at a very low level. This paper aims at the analysis of this phenomenon on the basis of European Social Survey data. Principal components analysis was applied to examine the degree of interpersonal trust in Poland in relation to other countries. Associations of three dimensions of trust, i.e. trustfulness, fairness and helpfulness, were analyzed by log-linear modeling as well as an agreement measure relevant for categorical variables. A composite indicator based on the first principal component scores confirmed the relatively poor social trust of Poles. A moderate agreement on any two of the three facets of this phenomenon was uncovered and in most cases no interactions among all three aspects of interpersonal trust were detected.