The power of trust
Trust, Religion, and Vaccine uptake.
Aechtner and Farr’s study on Religion, Trust, and Vaccine Hesitancy in Australia is a testament to the power of trust. I think it’s also importantly philosophical. Perhaps that doesn’t surprise you. A philosopher finds something interestingly philosophical — hardly a turn-up for the books. But bear with me.
According to Aechtner and Farr, trust, not religious belief, turned out to be the true currency shaping public attitudes. Given how much work religious belief can do, this is striking. What do we think is going on?
At its core, to trust someone — or some institution — is to believe they are not only capable but committed to your well-being, and that you can rely on them to honor that commitment. This is the kind of view you’ll see from philosophers like Katherine Hawley who describes trust as believing that someone has a commitment to doing something, and to rely upon them to meet that commitment. It’s a view pretty close to my own.
Other philosophers like Annette Baier have explored this dynamic . In her essay Trust and Antitrust (1986: 235), she writes, “When I trust another, I depend on her good will toward me..” When that goodwill is suspect — whether due to past betrayals, misinformation, or ideological rifts — trust collapses, and with it, the social bonds necessary for collective action like vaccination.
This collapse is precisely what Aechtner and Farr observed, albeit in the context of religion and public health. They analyzed two major datasets — the 2018 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) and the Wellcome Global Monitor — to explore whether religious beliefs were a significant driver of vaccine hesitancy. Their findings were, at first glance, surprising: religious affiliation alone had no statistically significant correlation with vaccine resistance. In other words, just being religious doesn’t make someone more or less likely to be vaccine hesitant. Really, it’s all about trust…..
The deeper story is more complex
While only 1% of participants explicitly stated that they had religious reasons for vaccine skepticism, a disproportionate number of those with negative vaccine attitudes did identify as either religious or spiritual. This might suggest that religion plays a subtle, cultural role — less about doctrine and more about worldview. Interestingly, the study also found that people who expressed concern about vaccine side effects were significantly more likely to believe in God and heaven. So belief systems still matter — they just don’t work in isolation.
Here’s where trust re-enters the picture, forcefully. The researchers discovered that the most powerful commonality among vaccine-hesitant Australians wasn’t their faith background but their mistrust — specifically, mistrust in the government and in scientists. This finding aligns with what philosopher Karen Jones says about trust, which she defines as an “affective attitude” involving vulnerability and expectations of goodwill (Jones, 1996, Australasian Journal of Philosophy). In full:
‘an attitude of optimism that the goodwill and competence of another will extend to cover the domain of our interaction with her, together with the expectation that the one trusted will be directly and favorably moved by the thought that we are counting on her. (1996, 1)’
In the current context, we can illustrate that idea as follows. Imagine a small-town clinic during a public health crisis. Supplies are short, tensions are high, and people are scared. A local nurse — let’s call her Priya — has been working nonstop. You’re not her family or close friend, just a member of the community who walks in one morning, feeling anxious and unsure.
You hand her your vaccination form. There’s no contract, no promise, just a silent assumption: that she’ll handle this moment with care. You trust that her goodwill — her desire to do right by others — and her competence — her ability to do her job well — will extend to cover this small but significant interaction.
And more than that, you trust she’ll care that you trust her; that the very fact that you’re relying on her will mean something to her. That she’ll be moved by it — perhaps not emotionally overwhelmed, but quietly affirmed in her duty. She might smile, explain things clearly, make you feel seen. And in that moment, trust becomes real.
Thus, trust is not just belief. It’s a leap — an emotional, social, and moral wager that the person across from you will rise to the occasion.
When people lose their trust in institutions, their willingness to accept recommendations — like vaccines — erodes.
The groups
Aechtner and Farr categorized vaccine-hesitant participants into two distinct groups: “Religious Conservatives” and “Nonreligious Progressives.” Despite their ideological differences, both groups shared low levels of trust in governmental and scientific institutions. The former group leaned toward traditional Christian beliefs, expressed socially conservative views, and were more likely to vote for Australia’s center-right Liberal Party. The latter group, while more socially progressive and nonreligious, often embraced alternative medicine and spiritual worldviews associated with “conspirituality” — a blend of wellness culture and conspiracy theories.
How could two ideologically opposed groups converge on the same outcome — vaccine resistance?
Philosophically, the answer could well lie in how trust becomes entangled with identity and values. For Religious Conservatives, trust in science could very plausibly feel like a betrayal of faith or tradition. They might view scientific authorities as secular, even antagonistic, to their worldview. For Nonreligious Progressives, particularly those drawn to alternative health movements, the distrust may well stem from a belief that science is co-opted by corporations or lacks spiritual wisdom.
This bifurcation is not new. Political scientist Dan Kahan’s work on “cultural cognition” has shown that people process scientific information in ways that align with their preexisting worldviews. As he argues,
“When they are guided byaffect heuristic, people’s assessments of putative risk source do not reflect a conscious calculation of discrete “costs and benefits”; instead, their assessments of “costs and benefits” is a reflection of how they feel:” (Kahan, 2014: 23).
Trust, then, is not just about data — it’s relational, emotional, and deeply tied to who we see ourselves as.
So what do we do with all this?
One takeaway for me is that tackling vaccine hesitancy isn’t just a matter of countering misinformation or debating theology. It’s about rebuilding trust — especially among people who feel alienated from mainstream institutions. Rather than focusing solely upon technical solutions or medical solutions, we need to be focusing instead on building trust.
In this context, that might mean, perhaps most importantly, a willingness to understand the moral and spiritual frameworks people use to make sense of health, science, and risk. It means respecting that trust is earned, not demanded. There is a lot of good advice available in the UK about how to do that from sources like the Quality Care Commissionand New Local.
Conclusion
Trust doesn’t always look like agreement. Sometimes it looks like being willing to listen, to ask questions, and to admit when we’ve gotten things wrong. But whatever else we think about trust, we shouldn’t underestimate its importance. In cases like this one, it’s a hugely powerful driver of behaviour.
References
Aechtner, T., & Farr, J. (2022). Religion, Trust, and Vaccine Hesitancy in Australia. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion
Baier, A. (1986). Trust and Antitrust. Ethics, 96(2), 231–260. JSTOR Link
Jones, K. (1996). Trust as an Affective Attitude. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 74(1), 4–26. Taylor & Francis
Kahan, D. (2014). Vaccine Risk Perceptions and Ad Hoc Risk Communication. SSRN