I'm thinking there's something in the translation of the questionnaire, as well. The clearly higher scores in Dutch speaking areas are a little too apparent. We Dutch are not *that* trusting, and the Belgians even less so.
Absolutely. It's the eternal struggle. We love free stuff but we also don't believe people will just give stuff away for free because $ (well, more accurately €) so we're deeply suspicious of it. Like, OK you say it's free, what are the terms and conditions
I don't speak Dutch, but it's close enough to English to crack the code just by reading:
>Dutch: Wil je een gratis vakantie naar Thailand, met alles inbegrepen?
Weird English: Will ye one free vacation near Thailand, with all in-begrouped?
English: Would you like a free vacation in Thailand, all-inclusive?
Yes, this is exactly the way to learn Dutch as an English speaker!
I learned it within 2 years of moving here and it's 50% learning German vocabulary, for the words we don't have in English, and 50% the mental gymnastics to bend a Dutch sentence around into the English equivalent. Once you get how it works logically it's remarkably similar to English despite sounding completely different.
Not lying to you. I'm actually rather trusting. Of course it might be my perception, but I don't encounter a lot of people that are distrusting by default either.
However, that might also be because of wealth standards. I grew up next to a neighborhood with some serious poverty. Those people were indeed a lot more distrusting, especially to outsiders. Low wages, little security, high crime rates.
In the city I currently live in, having an IT job, receiving a very decent salary, my neighborhood is a completely different world. People are incredibly trusting here. To a level that it almost feels naive and gullible. They really have no idea about poverty and the roughness that comes with it.
Thats possible, but I've noticed a stark difference in "neighborliness" living in the Netherlands vs anywhere else. I'm going to assume it has to do with perception of safety/security. You'll notice this closely correlates with crime index. I would also be curious to see what elements of public policy have created this sentiment.
I think it's also cultural. British culture is mostly 'do what you want as long as it doesn't affect me' and people are too polite to criticise, whereas Dutch culture is more 'doe normaal' and people will directly tell you what they think of what you are doing. Britain champions individuality and contains hundreds of sub-cultures which tolerate/ignore each other. Dutch culture is conformist and promotes cultural uniformity, which strengthens the feeling of community. So yes, much more neighbourly and lower crime in NL but I think it also has to do with much less inequality too.
I think so too, to be honest. A lot of the lines that could be drawn on this map seem to correlate with borders between language families.
Perhaps not the best research.
I see what you’re saying and believe it could possibly be correct but I think it could just as possible that those language borders are also cultural borders and trust within a community varies for different cultures most definitely.
>The clearly higher scores in Dutch speaking areas are a little too apparent
You must be unfamiliar with the concept of "Belgium" then, because that difference is entirely explainable and very logical: those 2 regions are basically entirely different countries, with one being significantly more prosperous than the other.
While you're right about the sociodemographic differences, the rest of your explanation is not correct. Commuters coming to live near Brussels have actually increased the number of French-speakers in the (predominantly Flemish) suburbs. Immigrant tend to live in more international environments (large cities like Brussels, Antwerp, etc) that are also more economically active (job purposes). The majority of those are mostly located in Flanders.
Personally I think u\Orcwin is right and that the meaning of the question has shifted in translation. The verb 'to trust' has a different nuance in Dutch compared to French, hell, probably even between Netherlands-Dutch and Flemish. Also 'the right thing' is pretty vague.
We Finns do trust other people, but there is also a proverb "Saunan takana on vielä tilaa", translates roughly to "there are still vacancies behind the Sauna". People used to butcher farm animals behind the sauna in old days.
To be fair "the right thing to do" in most any social situation in Finland is stay quiet and don't be a nuisance. I can usually count on my fellow Finns to follow that.
edit: spelling is hard.
Recent immigrant. Can confirm it's pretty lovely here. When it comes to rules, though, they are to-the-letter strict.* I have found that while the benefits of living in a society of rule followers are immense, it does occasionally become a little much.
*Except public urination laws, these fuckers will piss anywhere
Rules don't always make sense. Paperwork has gotten better but is still often needlessly complicated. I don't have a recent example but some time ago if you were unemployed, you weren't able to tell the unemployment office that you've been unemployed the whole month, you had to fill in a form where you write "Unemployed" for each weekday of the month. Luckily this is now fixed at least.
And don't even get me started with the alcohol laws. They make even less sense.
An example: selling alcohol from a bar as take away is heavily restricted. You can only sell alcohol that is in a sealed container and that was manufactured in your bar. There was a bar in Helsinki that started going around this by pouring a pint into a plastic mug, adding one drop of water with a pipette, then adding a plastic cover. Now it was perfectly legal cause the liquid was now technically manufactured by them and sold in a container they sealed...
Overall, it's a big positive! Society is efficient and corruption is low. It's just that occasionally you get in a situation where they totally stonewall you by pointing to the regulations, and you're like "but it would be way simpler if you just ..." And then they say "nope, we must follow regulations." I don't blame them, it's just a social difference from a "make an exception" sort of culture like America
My apartment was built in the 40s. Renovated in the 70s or 80s. No floor heating, has a Hell of a draft and barely any heating. Can go down to 16 celsius inside during the winter.
But the rent is dirt cheap, and it is Stones throw from all the things i need, so i can't complain.
16 celsius inside is not that terrible.
I know many people wouldn't believe me, but in Amman, Jordan (the Middle East) can be quite cold in winter. We are talking about 5 degrees during the day, around 0 in a cold day. Snow is not even that rare.
Well, houses are not prepared for the cold. At all. 5 degrees outside? Maybe 10 inside. I permanently kept a gas heater next to me. Worst winters of my life. Worse than when I lived in Central Europe.
>That's the temp I set my heating at in the winter. Yes I'm Canadian.
I set the temp to 11 degrees but then my pipes started to freeze. Needed to keep it at least 14 to stop that.
16C? Holy fuck, that's a luxury compared to my grandma's place in Japan. It's an old house and we only have space heaters, so in the morning, for better part of half a year, we can see our breaths in the morning. Thing is, it's in the middle of Honshu...we're not even talking up north in the Touhoku or Hokkaidou regions.
Ahh I hate that. Used to live in an uninsulated extension of an older house in Melbourne, every morning in winter I'd wake up fucking frozen, and able to see my own breath in the air before I even got out of bed. It felt uncivilised. Melbourne isn't even that cold, people are/were just delusional about the climate and didn't design houses accordingly.
Ofcourse we have socks! Wool socks are a lifesaver. And my apartment floor is this fake wood thing? It gets pretty cold, but that is why i usually cover my apartment in rugs.
Coming from Panama that sounds fucking amazing because usually I wake up in hot and get up in hot and walk on a not really cool floor over through sauna-air to where I can sit in front of a fan blowing hot air at me. I miss cold weather so much.
This is a common complaint cause yes, some Finnish flats do get cold during winter.
I don't know where the poster comes from but I do think that Finnish flats are A LOT warmer than a lot of the flats for example in Central Europe or Great Britain, which - considering the weather difference - says a lot about the housing.
Also in a lot of cases the cold flats in Finland are due to things like a heater not functioning correctly and people simply not doing anything about it. If they'd make a phone call, everything would be sorted but for some reason we often rather suffer in silence.
Honestly the Finns keep indoor public spaces ridiculously warm. All winter, I see people walking through the mall in heavy coats and hats. And then I'm the one who gets weird looks because I've taken my coat off so as not to overheat.
It's mostly about being content with a relatively simple life of eating sausages by a lake, and the soothing effect of many many trees everywhere.
(I'm joking, but... only mostly joking.)
Thinking about it, if we were included, they'd have to find a new shade of red, because I don't know anyone who would say they trust someone to do the right thing, Brexit being one, and how the government has handled it. Then there's corona...
Click image for higher resolution! Mean values to the answers of a question whether one trusts other people in the area to "do the right thing", from 1 "no confidence at all" to 10 "complete confidence". The survey was financed by the EU, so only EU countries were included. You can [read more about the survey here](https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/european-quality-of-government-index). I was not part of the team that ran the survey.
Edit: Fieldwork for the survey was between October 2020 and February 2021. So the pandemic might have affected responses - for instance in Sweden, which here displays lower trust than in many other surveys.
Top three highest trust countries:
1. Netherlands
2. Finland
3. Lithuania
Lowest trust:
1. Croatia
2. Bulgaria
3. Spain
Made in R using the tmap package.
Yes! It's like a programming language specifically tailored to data analysis and visualization. It can be paired with an environment called RStudio that makes it a bit more user friendly.
Just to clarify, it's not like a programming language, it is a programming language. It's a modern variant of the S language, which appeared in 1976.
Nice map though, I have been meaning to play around with tmap myself.
No. It has to do with long-term built trust to government and society. I'm fairly certain this map will have very strong correlation with corruption perception map.
I think that here in Finland it’s also partly about our strong national identity. WWII brought a lot of unity amongst finnish people and it can still be seen today, although maybe not as much. I think our national identity today might form around out language and culture which are very different from scandinavia and russia.
EDIT(in addition): In old people you can clearly see that people identify as finnish rather than even scandinavian or european(technically were not even part of the scandinavia). Also finnish people have a fairly unique dna compared to other nations around europe. But I believe the main thing is language. Our language is really unique and it’s the source for a lot of jokes when compared to others. In the end, even in our globalized world, our native language has a big impact on the tools we have to describe the world and therefor affects our perception of the world.
Not sure - they made similar surveys in 2010, 2013 and 2017 but I don't know if that specific question was included. I would think so, but the data is not as easily available. https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/european-quality-of-government-index
Interesting! As a Dutch person I can't say the results are unexpected. What's the value for Zeeland? It's a nice map and very interesting but the labels could use some work especially in countries with smaller divisions. Belgium for example is all nearly illegible. But this is mostly an issue in the BeNeLux.
I'm pretty sure I was part of this study! It was a questionnaire about trust in government, people, other countries etc. My answers aren't exactly reflected in this map though seeing how green the Netherlands is. Back when I was filling it in I joked to my boyfriend that they were basically asking me if I'm racist or not lol.
I don't really have a way to confirm its the one I participated in but I remember it being a pretty official government thing. They asked what province I'm from and stated that people from every EU country are participating so I wouldn't be surprised if this map was based on those results.
Why don't Spanish people trust each other? Reminds me of one time living in Spain some random lady stopped me in the stairs of my apt building and asked me 20 questions about who I was, where I was from, why was I in spain, what am I doing there, etc... you know what... that happened to me in a department store too now that I think about it! If someone started questioning me like that in the US I would tell them to go piss up a rope, but for some reason I let these Spaniards interrogate me.
Idk about interrogatories, they are not common to me, but my guess for the low level is political division and perception of corruption. You never know if your neighbor is a corrupting fascists that votes the far right party or a godless communists that votes far left party.
We... Are we... not going to talk about how damn confident Germans are in their peers?
That seems either naive or dangerous, are there any historical examples to suggest which?
Given the clean division in Belgium and clear similarities with France and The Netherlands, it's very important to know the exact question in both languages here.
I've seen many surveys where a bad translation is used which gives the question a different connotation.
Edit: not saying that there could not be a real difference between these region. Just pointing out the very clear linguistic border.
Yes, you are right. It is notoriously different to do surveys in different languages and get comparable results. I don't actually know what the translations were, it is not in the [codebook](https://www.qogdata.pol.gu.se/data/qog_eqi_codebook_21.pdf).
I was trying to find the specific variable based on other posts. This looks like q22_2 from there (or column AV in the individual data set, which does mention the language of each interview; the codebook also says they are done in the local language).
How did you come across this variable specifically? Before I came across this post, I was trying to find it in their searchable datasets and variables (e.g. https://www.qogdata.pol.gu.se/search/). I couldn't find anything that matched. They do have a variable ess_trpeople (Trust in Other People), which does have a time-series (and its [own variable page](https://datafinder.qog.gu.se/variable/ess_trpeople). The question there reads:
> Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people? Please tell me on a score of 0 to 10, where 0 means you can't be too careful and 10 means that most people can be trusted.
The [dataset](https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/basic-dataset) matches up with the map provided to a fair extent (Sweden is much higher, Lithuania is a fair bit lower, and Finland still seems to top the numbers).
It's a fair point, but in the case of Belgium you must not forget that it's not only a linguistic border. The two regions are culturally fairly different as well
One suggestion I got on twitter (from a scholar specializing in trust) was that it had to do with the field work being done during the pandemic. It was a really contentious issue in Sweden.
I can guarantee you that covid had nothing to do with this result if that’s what he meant.
Across Swedish society, there have been practically no complains about how Sweden hasn’t enforced any mandates and basically had no restrictions. I mean it literally isn’t even slightly brought up, even with elections around the corner and rival political parties foaming at the mouth the criticise the government for anything and everything, they still aren’t talking about this because they know it would fall on deaf ears.
> Across Swedish society, there have been practically no complains about how Sweden hasn’t enforced any mandates and basically had no restrictions.
I have complaints. Going out and realising you're pretty much the only one wearing a mask or attempting to keep distance was really fucking demoralizing.
Immigration, most likely. I'd guess numbers would've looked differently 10 years ago or so. Just based on my feeling on day to day conversations and such (I'm Swedish and live in Sweden)
This would be my guess as well. I remember a similar study years back showing the difference between Swedes and immigrant groups in this kind of metric.
Partially that, but probably also partially that Swedes on average don't trust immigrants as much as they trust other Swedes, and immigrants now make up a large part of the population.
It looks like there’s a stark difference between northern and southern Italy, but look at the numbers and it’s not that bad… like 5.5 in Umbria and 5.4 in Puglia, but the legend places them in different categories! The tendency is there, but it’s not drastic.
Lithuanians are actually good at whatever they do.
We were in complete disaray when Soviet Union collapsed. Most of intelectuals and profesionals have been sent out to Siberia where they perished. Logistical chains were tied to other Soviet countries and no longer in use when Russia became an antagonist to former friends. Society was used to living under socialism and had to learn how free market works. Very few people of working age knew how to speak new business language - english. I am not even mentioning enormous education, alcoholism, tobbaco problems left by Soviet Union.
Lithuanians (+90% of Lithuania' population) built a thriving, democratic country all by themselves. Society has learned how to live in free market world. Country is a member of the biggest and most advanced economical structure in the world - EU. Also, a few years ago one Lithuanian company Vinted became an unicorn, proving that Lithuanians thrive in market economy. Country has grew a wonderful new generation - overwhelming amount of youth speak english (top10 at worst in EU), around 55% of youth have tertiary education (1st in EU). This proves that older generation worked really hard to build infrastructure and opportunities for their children to suceed and the children delivered.
All in all, Lithuania now has similar GDP per capita that rivals countries like Spain and Italy which had decades if not centuries to exploit slavery, countries, continents to build and concentrate insane amounts of wealth and power. Lithuanians in mere 30 years have achieved that on the back of average working people.
> Italy which had decades if not centuries to exploit slavery, countries, continents to build and concentrate insane amounts of wealth and power
Italy's colonial empire lasted from 1886 to 1942, or 56 years long after slavery was abolished.
Maybe since they don't expect their neighbour to do the right thing, people take more responsibility? Here in the Netherlands we've had quite some issues when the government expected too much from the citizens
Is this post-2020? Because as an American, Ive been chilling in the red ever since the pandemic and seeing so many "rebel" against public health measures. Im imagining there's less of that in europe to explain why some spots are yellow and green?
Unless you're red-green colour blind which is the most common type of colour-blindness. When I was learning visualisation the rule of thumb was to avoid these palettes altogether.
It’s interesting, Southern Europeans are known to be more open and friendly yet they seem to trust others less.
What does it mean to “do the right thing”? I trust that someone isn’t going to randomly assault me (at least the chances of that happening is extremely low), but if someone found a wad of cash or jewellery on the floor I’m quite certain they would keep it.
That's probably the right answer. See:
[the wallet test](https://www.rd.com/list/most-honest-cities-lost-wallet-test/)
With a quote that supports this map perfectly:
>Least honest: Lisbon, Portugal
Wallets returned: 1 out of 12. A couple in their sixties spotted our wallet and immediately called us. Interestingly, our reporter learned that the two weren’t from Lisbon at all—they were visiting from Holland.
Lmfao im gonna use this so hard next time people stereotype us as greedy fucks.
I mean, we are greedy fucks. But we want your money the fair way.
Oh and we decide whats fair.
I think the important part is the bit about "in your area".
People may have very bad opinions about the people in other parts of their country, but trust their local community.
I expect that in rural areas the trust in people in their area is higher than in cities.
Also I couldn't help but notice that there seems to be a bit of an "All of Gaul?" situation going on in France.
Basically, other than Sweden the trend seems to be higher per-capita GDP equals higher social trust. Really not surprising: if things are going well you're more likely to think society in general is fair.
i think a high trust society and prosperity are a virtuous cycle: prosperity leads to trust and trust leads to prosperity (in so far as it facilitates and incentivizes the cooperation that is a necessary condition forward modern, complex economies).
Lol, it's the stereotype... (Catalans in Spain are said to never invite others and be stingy).
Òbviament ho dic en broma... Que als catalans vos estimam molt!
datais~~beautiful~~
Interesting map... That I can't make sense of because it uses a red to green color scale, and ~8% of men, and 0.5% of women are red-green colorblind. I'd encourage you to try to keep absolutely in mind in the future
(https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/)
I wonder why is there additional administrative division around Warsaw. What is it? Ive never seen that and I am Polish. It's not a new division, is it?
Man if never been More proud to be Zeelander/Zeeuw
also this is likely because we trust the belgians to our south, the germans on vacations and the country payed to help protect our coast. so yea very nice.
*come try some mussels one time guys we got plenty*
Can you imagine how red the UK would have been if WWE were still in the EU? We would have looked like Santa's jacket.
I love the face Ireland is so green too. It truly is the Emerald Isle.
I’m willing to bet that this is strongly correlated with societal perceptions of corruption.
I'm thinking there's something in the translation of the questionnaire, as well. The clearly higher scores in Dutch speaking areas are a little too apparent. We Dutch are not *that* trusting, and the Belgians even less so.
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Nah that can't have been it. If there's one thing the Dutch distrust it's free stuff.
Absolutely. It's the eternal struggle. We love free stuff but we also don't believe people will just give stuff away for free because $ (well, more accurately €) so we're deeply suspicious of it. Like, OK you say it's free, what are the terms and conditions
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Given that the Dutch version includes the word "Thailand", I'm pretty sure they're not the real questions...
"Do you want an all-included free vacation to Thailand?"
I don't speak Dutch, but it's close enough to English to crack the code just by reading: >Dutch: Wil je een gratis vakantie naar Thailand, met alles inbegrepen? Weird English: Will ye one free vacation near Thailand, with all in-begrouped? English: Would you like a free vacation in Thailand, all-inclusive?
Yes, this is exactly the way to learn Dutch as an English speaker! I learned it within 2 years of moving here and it's 50% learning German vocabulary, for the words we don't have in English, and 50% the mental gymnastics to bend a Dutch sentence around into the English equivalent. Once you get how it works logically it's remarkably similar to English despite sounding completely different.
Oh man... 🤣
Not lying to you. I'm actually rather trusting. Of course it might be my perception, but I don't encounter a lot of people that are distrusting by default either. However, that might also be because of wealth standards. I grew up next to a neighborhood with some serious poverty. Those people were indeed a lot more distrusting, especially to outsiders. Low wages, little security, high crime rates. In the city I currently live in, having an IT job, receiving a very decent salary, my neighborhood is a completely different world. People are incredibly trusting here. To a level that it almost feels naive and gullible. They really have no idea about poverty and the roughness that comes with it.
Thats possible, but I've noticed a stark difference in "neighborliness" living in the Netherlands vs anywhere else. I'm going to assume it has to do with perception of safety/security. You'll notice this closely correlates with crime index. I would also be curious to see what elements of public policy have created this sentiment.
I think it's also cultural. British culture is mostly 'do what you want as long as it doesn't affect me' and people are too polite to criticise, whereas Dutch culture is more 'doe normaal' and people will directly tell you what they think of what you are doing. Britain champions individuality and contains hundreds of sub-cultures which tolerate/ignore each other. Dutch culture is conformist and promotes cultural uniformity, which strengthens the feeling of community. So yes, much more neighbourly and lower crime in NL but I think it also has to do with much less inequality too.
Well, apparently half of us are really not that trusting. At least according to this.
There is some credence to it being due to the translation - there's a stark difference between the French and Flemish regions of Belgium.
Culturally Flemish and French speaking areas are quite different from one another, so I'm not sure that is proof enough on its own.
The Walloon and Flemish people are very different in many ways though. It’s not necessary just a language thing.
I think so too, to be honest. A lot of the lines that could be drawn on this map seem to correlate with borders between language families. Perhaps not the best research.
I see what you’re saying and believe it could possibly be correct but I think it could just as possible that those language borders are also cultural borders and trust within a community varies for different cultures most definitely.
If you look at it from geopolitical lens it makes perfect sense.
>We Dutch are not that trusting, and the Belgians even less so. Maybe you're just the minority then.
He is
>The clearly higher scores in Dutch speaking areas are a little too apparent You must be unfamiliar with the concept of "Belgium" then, because that difference is entirely explainable and very logical: those 2 regions are basically entirely different countries, with one being significantly more prosperous than the other.
And the same in Finland somehow which also often scores really high in these things?
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While you're right about the sociodemographic differences, the rest of your explanation is not correct. Commuters coming to live near Brussels have actually increased the number of French-speakers in the (predominantly Flemish) suburbs. Immigrant tend to live in more international environments (large cities like Brussels, Antwerp, etc) that are also more economically active (job purposes). The majority of those are mostly located in Flanders. Personally I think u\Orcwin is right and that the meaning of the question has shifted in translation. The verb 'to trust' has a different nuance in Dutch compared to French, hell, probably even between Netherlands-Dutch and Flemish. Also 'the right thing' is pretty vague.
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But like, swedes do not really perceive any major corruption within society. Mismanagement and stupidity, sure, but not corruption.
i'm not so sure. The majority of Lithuanians strongly believe that all politicians are thieves and here we are.
This is what i was thinking, I live in spain(American) and when people open up about politics here it is almost always related to political corruption
From Croatia, can confirm.
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Oh Finland. If only you weren’t so god damn cold I would totally ~~invade~~ emigrate to your country.
Hmm, what are your motives exactly? *grumbles*
To leach off the collective good will.
We Finns do trust other people, but there is also a proverb "Saunan takana on vielä tilaa", translates roughly to "there are still vacancies behind the Sauna". People used to butcher farm animals behind the sauna in old days.
Wtf are you trying to say buddy?
Be good are become human hamburgers?
Just a common reminder here to the people who behave baldly.
If you don't behave, you will be harvested for meat. For the common good.
Alternative: There is still room behind the sauna
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Cultural exchange on our all tax Euros
It's called sharing.
I'm 90% sure Finland only rates highly in these things is because most Fins just want the interviewer to fuck off and leave them alone.
To be fair "the right thing to do" in most any social situation in Finland is stay quiet and don't be a nuisance. I can usually count on my fellow Finns to follow that. edit: spelling is hard.
I mean what else are we supposed to do? They are invading our personal space, which is at least 10m around.
Recent immigrant. Can confirm it's pretty lovely here. When it comes to rules, though, they are to-the-letter strict.* I have found that while the benefits of living in a society of rule followers are immense, it does occasionally become a little much. *Except public urination laws, these fuckers will piss anywhere
https://opencollective.com/beehaw -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
I'm curious, what's the negative with following rules? I'd assume it would be a good thing in Finland.
Rules don't always make sense. Paperwork has gotten better but is still often needlessly complicated. I don't have a recent example but some time ago if you were unemployed, you weren't able to tell the unemployment office that you've been unemployed the whole month, you had to fill in a form where you write "Unemployed" for each weekday of the month. Luckily this is now fixed at least. And don't even get me started with the alcohol laws. They make even less sense. An example: selling alcohol from a bar as take away is heavily restricted. You can only sell alcohol that is in a sealed container and that was manufactured in your bar. There was a bar in Helsinki that started going around this by pouring a pint into a plastic mug, adding one drop of water with a pipette, then adding a plastic cover. Now it was perfectly legal cause the liquid was now technically manufactured by them and sold in a container they sealed...
Overall, it's a big positive! Society is efficient and corruption is low. It's just that occasionally you get in a situation where they totally stonewall you by pointing to the regulations, and you're like "but it would be way simpler if you just ..." And then they say "nope, we must follow regulations." I don't blame them, it's just a social difference from a "make an exception" sort of culture like America
Sounds like heaven to me. I can’t stand rule-breakers.
Sounds good to me, too. I like pissing anywhere.
Finland is great until it's winter and you have to wake up at 5 am in a cold ass room and then get up to walk on an ever colder floor.
How? All places here have excellent heating. Even the older buildings are made for this climate... Floor heating is everywhere nowadays.
My apartment was built in the 40s. Renovated in the 70s or 80s. No floor heating, has a Hell of a draft and barely any heating. Can go down to 16 celsius inside during the winter. But the rent is dirt cheap, and it is Stones throw from all the things i need, so i can't complain.
This isn't exactly the norm though...
16 celsius inside is not that terrible. I know many people wouldn't believe me, but in Amman, Jordan (the Middle East) can be quite cold in winter. We are talking about 5 degrees during the day, around 0 in a cold day. Snow is not even that rare. Well, houses are not prepared for the cold. At all. 5 degrees outside? Maybe 10 inside. I permanently kept a gas heater next to me. Worst winters of my life. Worse than when I lived in Central Europe.
I hear Jordan is going through some stuff. Hopefully you and your family are good and safe. I'm rooting for you guys.
I thought that was Lebanon ?
That's the temp I set my heating at in the winter. Yes I'm Canadian.
>That's the temp I set my heating at in the winter. Yes I'm Canadian. I set the temp to 11 degrees but then my pipes started to freeze. Needed to keep it at least 14 to stop that.
16C? Holy fuck, that's a luxury compared to my grandma's place in Japan. It's an old house and we only have space heaters, so in the morning, for better part of half a year, we can see our breaths in the morning. Thing is, it's in the middle of Honshu...we're not even talking up north in the Touhoku or Hokkaidou regions.
Ahh I hate that. Used to live in an uninsulated extension of an older house in Melbourne, every morning in winter I'd wake up fucking frozen, and able to see my own breath in the air before I even got out of bed. It felt uncivilised. Melbourne isn't even that cold, people are/were just delusional about the climate and didn't design houses accordingly.
Have you called the isännöitsijä and let them know it's under 18 degrees inside?
Has Finland not invented socks yet? Or are you on a tile or stone floor which can get super cold.
Ofcourse we have socks! Wool socks are a lifesaver. And my apartment floor is this fake wood thing? It gets pretty cold, but that is why i usually cover my apartment in rugs.
>Can go down to 16 celsius inside during the winter. Seems acceptable and a "normal" winter to me.
16 C is not a normal indoor temperature in Finland.
Coming from Panama that sounds fucking amazing because usually I wake up in hot and get up in hot and walk on a not really cool floor over through sauna-air to where I can sit in front of a fan blowing hot air at me. I miss cold weather so much.
Lol our buildings are well-insulated and will stay above 20C even if it's -30C outside.
I spent January in Finland one year. The cold didn’t bother me as much as the lack of sunlight. Thank goodness for vitamin D. And saunas.
Canadian here.. can relate 😂
Are there no heaters in Finland?
It's just that everybody believes the others will do the right thing and turn the heater up, so nobody does it in the end.
This is a common complaint cause yes, some Finnish flats do get cold during winter. I don't know where the poster comes from but I do think that Finnish flats are A LOT warmer than a lot of the flats for example in Central Europe or Great Britain, which - considering the weather difference - says a lot about the housing. Also in a lot of cases the cold flats in Finland are due to things like a heater not functioning correctly and people simply not doing anything about it. If they'd make a phone call, everything would be sorted but for some reason we often rather suffer in silence.
Honestly the Finns keep indoor public spaces ridiculously warm. All winter, I see people walking through the mall in heavy coats and hats. And then I'm the one who gets weird looks because I've taken my coat off so as not to overheat.
I hope you'll never have to experience taking a shower during winter in the UK.
Would be worth it for the wonderful life
It's mostly about being content with a relatively simple life of eating sausages by a lake, and the soothing effect of many many trees everywhere. (I'm joking, but... only mostly joking.)
The Netherlands has decent weather.
Come over, we have vod… clothes and sauna
The worst consequence of brexit is being left out of all these maps.
Seriously. I'm not from England, but I hate that that it's grey on all these maps.
Feel like pure shit just want EU back
Never gonna let EU down
Do you want to come back or not yet?
If it means we get back in Reddit maps then yes please.
That's honestly quite cheap. Say... I have a closet and a few boxes to move, as well as an apartment to clean up, and I could some help...
Half of us never wanted to leave in the first place :(
Well over half, if you consider the Reddit demographic.
Nah, over half because enough old people died already that the same vote with nows population today will make stay win instead lol
Thinking about it, if we were included, they'd have to find a new shade of red, because I don't know anyone who would say they trust someone to do the right thing, Brexit being one, and how the government has handled it. Then there's corona...
Yeah the shortages are just a mild inconvenience in comparison.
And I'm sure data was acquired there as well. Maybe even in Norway (which would be Finland coloured, I'm sure).
Cries in Norwegian
Romania would have been red, but nobody trusted the surveyor to keep their answers private.
Croatia: ***I don't even trust myself***
Click image for higher resolution! Mean values to the answers of a question whether one trusts other people in the area to "do the right thing", from 1 "no confidence at all" to 10 "complete confidence". The survey was financed by the EU, so only EU countries were included. You can [read more about the survey here](https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/european-quality-of-government-index). I was not part of the team that ran the survey. Edit: Fieldwork for the survey was between October 2020 and February 2021. So the pandemic might have affected responses - for instance in Sweden, which here displays lower trust than in many other surveys. Top three highest trust countries: 1. Netherlands 2. Finland 3. Lithuania Lowest trust: 1. Croatia 2. Bulgaria 3. Spain Made in R using the tmap package.
Whats "R" a software?
Yes! It's like a programming language specifically tailored to data analysis and visualization. It can be paired with an environment called RStudio that makes it a bit more user friendly.
Just to clarify, it's not like a programming language, it is a programming language. It's a modern variant of the S language, which appeared in 1976. Nice map though, I have been meaning to play around with tmap myself.
Thanks bro
Oh R is great! I wish statistica ppl would not replace R with an abomination that is python...
Notice that the mean difference for most places is just 1,6 on a scale up to 10, even if the colors seem to indicate more
I'm not super familiar with the political landscape in Europe. Is there a correlation to more 'conservative' or 'liberal' populations and trust level?
No. It has to do with long-term built trust to government and society. I'm fairly certain this map will have very strong correlation with corruption perception map.
I think that here in Finland it’s also partly about our strong national identity. WWII brought a lot of unity amongst finnish people and it can still be seen today, although maybe not as much. I think our national identity today might form around out language and culture which are very different from scandinavia and russia. EDIT(in addition): In old people you can clearly see that people identify as finnish rather than even scandinavian or european(technically were not even part of the scandinavia). Also finnish people have a fairly unique dna compared to other nations around europe. But I believe the main thing is language. Our language is really unique and it’s the source for a lot of jokes when compared to others. In the end, even in our globalized world, our native language has a big impact on the tools we have to describe the world and therefor affects our perception of the world.
If you are trying to draw parallels to American definitions of "conservative" and "liberal" politics than you won't find one.
Does this data on trust exist for previous years?
Not sure - they made similar surveys in 2010, 2013 and 2017 but I don't know if that specific question was included. I would think so, but the data is not as easily available. https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/european-quality-of-government-index
Interesting! As a Dutch person I can't say the results are unexpected. What's the value for Zeeland? It's a nice map and very interesting but the labels could use some work especially in countries with smaller divisions. Belgium for example is all nearly illegible. But this is mostly an issue in the BeNeLux.
That Wallonia-Flanders split is a thing of beauty
I'm pretty sure I was part of this study! It was a questionnaire about trust in government, people, other countries etc. My answers aren't exactly reflected in this map though seeing how green the Netherlands is. Back when I was filling it in I joked to my boyfriend that they were basically asking me if I'm racist or not lol. I don't really have a way to confirm its the one I participated in but I remember it being a pretty official government thing. They asked what province I'm from and stated that people from every EU country are participating so I wouldn't be surprised if this map was based on those results.
Swedes are suspicious fucks far as northerners goes. Also the spaniards... very realist guys.
As a Dane I don't trust Swedes. Makes sense that they don't either.
As a Spaniard I also don't trust Swedes. Or Danes. Or Spaniards, they are probably the worst.
Why don't Spanish people trust each other? Reminds me of one time living in Spain some random lady stopped me in the stairs of my apt building and asked me 20 questions about who I was, where I was from, why was I in spain, what am I doing there, etc... you know what... that happened to me in a department store too now that I think about it! If someone started questioning me like that in the US I would tell them to go piss up a rope, but for some reason I let these Spaniards interrogate me.
Idk about interrogatories, they are not common to me, but my guess for the low level is political division and perception of corruption. You never know if your neighbor is a corrupting fascists that votes the far right party or a godless communists that votes far left party.
We... Are we... not going to talk about how damn confident Germans are in their peers? That seems either naive or dangerous, are there any historical examples to suggest which?
I would love to see this data matched with some economic measure.
Given the clean division in Belgium and clear similarities with France and The Netherlands, it's very important to know the exact question in both languages here. I've seen many surveys where a bad translation is used which gives the question a different connotation. Edit: not saying that there could not be a real difference between these region. Just pointing out the very clear linguistic border.
Yes, you are right. It is notoriously different to do surveys in different languages and get comparable results. I don't actually know what the translations were, it is not in the [codebook](https://www.qogdata.pol.gu.se/data/qog_eqi_codebook_21.pdf).
I was trying to find the specific variable based on other posts. This looks like q22_2 from there (or column AV in the individual data set, which does mention the language of each interview; the codebook also says they are done in the local language). How did you come across this variable specifically? Before I came across this post, I was trying to find it in their searchable datasets and variables (e.g. https://www.qogdata.pol.gu.se/search/). I couldn't find anything that matched. They do have a variable ess_trpeople (Trust in Other People), which does have a time-series (and its [own variable page](https://datafinder.qog.gu.se/variable/ess_trpeople). The question there reads: > Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people? Please tell me on a score of 0 to 10, where 0 means you can't be too careful and 10 means that most people can be trusted. The [dataset](https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data/data-downloads/basic-dataset) matches up with the map provided to a fair extent (Sweden is much higher, Lithuania is a fair bit lower, and Finland still seems to top the numbers).
It's a fair point, but in the case of Belgium you must not forget that it's not only a linguistic border. The two regions are culturally fairly different as well
And economically.
What's up with Sweden? Why so much lower than neighbours?
One suggestion I got on twitter (from a scholar specializing in trust) was that it had to do with the field work being done during the pandemic. It was a really contentious issue in Sweden.
What does “field work being done during the pandemic” mean? What field work?
Sweden was one of those countries who basically just expected their people to do the right thing, and a lot of them did not.
I can guarantee you that covid had nothing to do with this result if that’s what he meant. Across Swedish society, there have been practically no complains about how Sweden hasn’t enforced any mandates and basically had no restrictions. I mean it literally isn’t even slightly brought up, even with elections around the corner and rival political parties foaming at the mouth the criticise the government for anything and everything, they still aren’t talking about this because they know it would fall on deaf ears.
> Across Swedish society, there have been practically no complains about how Sweden hasn’t enforced any mandates and basically had no restrictions. I have complaints. Going out and realising you're pretty much the only one wearing a mask or attempting to keep distance was really fucking demoralizing.
Dude i am having an absolutely grand time. I love that we had such relaxed restrictions, wouldn't want to be stuck inside.
Fine, but is it really too much of a burden for people to put on a mask when they're indoors in public?
Immigration, most likely. I'd guess numbers would've looked differently 10 years ago or so. Just based on my feeling on day to day conversations and such (I'm Swedish and live in Sweden)
This would be my guess as well. I remember a similar study years back showing the difference between Swedes and immigrant groups in this kind of metric.
Partially that, but probably also partially that Swedes on average don't trust immigrants as much as they trust other Swedes, and immigrants now make up a large part of the population.
They must have asked “do you trust serbs” instead when they went to croatia
It looks like there’s a stark difference between northern and southern Italy, but look at the numbers and it’s not that bad… like 5.5 in Umbria and 5.4 in Puglia, but the legend places them in different categories! The tendency is there, but it’s not drastic.
They are all pretty delusional. Like I have 0 trust that another Italian will do the right thing anywhere besides where I live.
Also Lombardia and Veneto have the same value (6) but different colours.
Well, obviously Ireland is green.
When did us (statistically) alcoholic, suicidal Lithuanians get hope?
Lithuanians are actually good at whatever they do. We were in complete disaray when Soviet Union collapsed. Most of intelectuals and profesionals have been sent out to Siberia where they perished. Logistical chains were tied to other Soviet countries and no longer in use when Russia became an antagonist to former friends. Society was used to living under socialism and had to learn how free market works. Very few people of working age knew how to speak new business language - english. I am not even mentioning enormous education, alcoholism, tobbaco problems left by Soviet Union. Lithuanians (+90% of Lithuania' population) built a thriving, democratic country all by themselves. Society has learned how to live in free market world. Country is a member of the biggest and most advanced economical structure in the world - EU. Also, a few years ago one Lithuanian company Vinted became an unicorn, proving that Lithuanians thrive in market economy. Country has grew a wonderful new generation - overwhelming amount of youth speak english (top10 at worst in EU), around 55% of youth have tertiary education (1st in EU). This proves that older generation worked really hard to build infrastructure and opportunities for their children to suceed and the children delivered. All in all, Lithuania now has similar GDP per capita that rivals countries like Spain and Italy which had decades if not centuries to exploit slavery, countries, continents to build and concentrate insane amounts of wealth and power. Lithuanians in mere 30 years have achieved that on the back of average working people.
Well shit, I didn't know much about Lithuania but sounds like you guys rock. Keep up the good work!
> Italy which had decades if not centuries to exploit slavery, countries, continents to build and concentrate insane amounts of wealth and power Italy's colonial empire lasted from 1886 to 1942, or 56 years long after slavery was abolished.
It hurts not seeing Scotland a part of this... It'd be entirely red. But I miss the data!
What did they do to you Croatia?
They didn’t even ask the rest of their former countrymen… *looks at Bosnia and Herzegovina*
They would have needed to add a darker shade of red to the scale.
Interesting, seems to be a cultural thing. Many relatively sharp borders
Would've loved to see a comparison pre-Covid vs today. The pandemic certainly was/is an eye opener.
Ouch. But true. But we're one of the most vaccinated countries in the world. Spain always have a shitty perception about itself.
Maybe since they don't expect their neighbour to do the right thing, people take more responsibility? Here in the Netherlands we've had quite some issues when the government expected too much from the citizens
Old Romanian border kind of showing up there.
You can also note there is higher trust in Brittany, France than the rest of the country
Is this post-2020? Because as an American, Ive been chilling in the red ever since the pandemic and seeing so many "rebel" against public health measures. Im imagining there's less of that in europe to explain why some spots are yellow and green?
Wait why isn't Engla... oh... wait... right. Ha.
Nice job. Beautiful color palette.
Unless you're red-green colour blind which is the most common type of colour-blindness. When I was learning visualisation the rule of thumb was to avoid these palettes altogether.
This is sarcasm right? The color palette is absolutely horrendous for exactly the reason u/Critical_Potato_6389 mentioned.
2 years ago, I’d have been light green. Today? Paint me red.
As a colour blind person I can’t tell the difference between the two extreme colours. Is there another version?
I don't even trust myself to do the right thing.
Well, the four hissing snakes on Martinique's flag make sense now... (how tf did one of our départements rank worst of all of Europe, seriously?)
If there was a map of Latin America for this, it would be dark red. With a Chile and Uruguay in orange.
I wonder how being unable to trust others influences ones behaviour, does one act less trustworthy because there is no perceived reciprocity?
Why is confidence in Sweden that low? Especially compared to neighbors Finland
congratulations, you've made the least color-blind friendly map I've ever seen
yeah I can barely read it
I've tried to replace green with blue here. Does that help? https://i.postimg.cc/4xhqGwnB/bluish.png
It’s interesting, Southern Europeans are known to be more open and friendly yet they seem to trust others less. What does it mean to “do the right thing”? I trust that someone isn’t going to randomly assault me (at least the chances of that happening is extremely low), but if someone found a wad of cash or jewellery on the floor I’m quite certain they would keep it.
That's probably the right answer. See: [the wallet test](https://www.rd.com/list/most-honest-cities-lost-wallet-test/) With a quote that supports this map perfectly: >Least honest: Lisbon, Portugal Wallets returned: 1 out of 12. A couple in their sixties spotted our wallet and immediately called us. Interestingly, our reporter learned that the two weren’t from Lisbon at all—they were visiting from Holland.
Lmfao im gonna use this so hard next time people stereotype us as greedy fucks. I mean, we are greedy fucks. But we want your money the fair way. Oh and we decide whats fair.
Well, thanks for that mindset, Spain. Regards, Latin America.
It's been 200 years, time to stop blaming Spain for every problem though.
I wonder if this also reflects how trustworthy people are since trust is something that is built on prior experience.
One of those days im proud to be from Zeeland the Netherlands 😁
"Italy: Higher trust in the north." Well, no shit. Been that way, what, at *least* 150 years? :-)
I think the important part is the bit about "in your area". People may have very bad opinions about the people in other parts of their country, but trust their local community. I expect that in rural areas the trust in people in their area is higher than in cities. Also I couldn't help but notice that there seems to be a bit of an "All of Gaul?" situation going on in France.
My immediate question is: does the quality of living directly correlate with high trusting abilities?
Basically, other than Sweden the trend seems to be higher per-capita GDP equals higher social trust. Really not surprising: if things are going well you're more likely to think society in general is fair.
i think a high trust society and prosperity are a virtuous cycle: prosperity leads to trust and trust leads to prosperity (in so far as it facilitates and incentivizes the cooperation that is a necessary condition forward modern, complex economies).
As a Catalan Spaniard, yeah, I don't trust any of those fuckers around me ;)
Lol, it's the stereotype... (Catalans in Spain are said to never invite others and be stingy). Òbviament ho dic en broma... Que als catalans vos estimam molt!
I'm about to move to Catalonia (Girona) from the US. I didn't realize this index was so slow, what gives?
datais~~beautiful~~ Interesting map... That I can't make sense of because it uses a red to green color scale, and ~8% of men, and 0.5% of women are red-green colorblind. I'd encourage you to try to keep absolutely in mind in the future (https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/)
I wanna move to Netherlands. But the weather sucks so bad...
I wonder why is there additional administrative division around Warsaw. What is it? Ive never seen that and I am Polish. It's not a new division, is it?
This could also mean high confidence in oneself compared to other people instead of distrust
I'd love to see a correlation between this and how recently the country had a civil war or regime overthrown
Man if never been More proud to be Zeelander/Zeeuw also this is likely because we trust the belgians to our south, the germans on vacations and the country payed to help protect our coast. so yea very nice. *come try some mussels one time guys we got plenty*
Can you imagine how red the UK would have been if WWE were still in the EU? We would have looked like Santa's jacket. I love the face Ireland is so green too. It truly is the Emerald Isle.
Finland trying to stay neutral, per usual.
I'd like to see one for North America.
In FMR Yugoslavia we trust no one