Confidence in societal institutions extends citizens’ radius of trust, leading to even greater life satisfaction in societies with stronger rule of law

Confidence in one’s societal institutions is essential for people’s well-being. We argue that a citizen’s perceived trust in known others and trust in strangers mediate that relationship and that the effects of both sources of trust on life satisfaction depend on a society’s rule of law. Data were used from representative samples of persons (n = 39,140) from 40 nations and territories from the World Values Survey, wave 7. As expected, multilevel analyses showed that confidence in one’s societal institutions generally predicted greater life satisfaction for a society’s citizens. These patterns were mediated positively by trust in known others but negatively by trust in strangers. Importantly, the within-society links of life satisfaction with these two types of trust depended on a society’s rule of law, with stronger positive associations between trust in others and life satisfaction in societies strong in the rule of law. In societies weak in the rule of law, trust in strangers was negatively associated with life satisfaction. The present study highlights the importance of differentiating the type of trust in shaping an individual’s well-being and the role of socio-political infrastructure in developing the trust of its members towards both known others and strangers. Copyright © 2025 The International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) and Springer Nature B.V.