Breaking Negative Narratives: Long-term Social Progress and Trust in Institutions

Federica Braccioli, Gianmarco Daniele and Andrea FM Martinangeli

No 393, Department of Economics Working Paper Series from WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Abstract: Democratic institutions worldwide are facing rising distrust. We posit that establishing data-driven narratives on long-term social progress and holding institutions accountable for it can restore confidence in institutions. We focus on public safety, a domain in which progress can be quantified by declining violence across industrialized countries. We implement a large-scale online experiment in Italy, a country particularly prone to negative narratives, exposing 7,000 adults to data-driven narratives on declining homicide rates, justice efficiency, and corruption reduction in the last twenty years. The information significantly increases social and institutional trust, including incentivised donations to a law enforcement–related organization (effects of 6–9% of a standard deviation). These findings persist fifty days later in a follow-up survey. Effects are strongest when social progress is explicitly linked to state action and for individuals holding more negative views. Both positive news and accountability dynamics drive the results. These findings offer a pathway to counter persistent disillusionment in democratic governance, by showing how aligning public perceptions with societal progress can restore institutional trust.

Keywords: experiment; misperceptions; narratives; social progress; trust (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-12
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://research.wu.ac.at/en/publications/c3f21d60-e00f-4865-950e-6dd0d48f6403 original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wiw:wus005:80525533

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Economics Working Paper Series from WU Vienna University of Economics and Business Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by WU Library ().