How Institutions Can Create Social Cohesion

Issue 103: On how relationships, identities, and institutions work together to create social cohesion and trust

Dom and his former PhD student Nick Ungson just finished editing a special issue about “the psychology of social cohesion” for the journal Translational Issues in Psychological Science. With our outstanding team of associate editors¹, we were delighted to receive fascinating papers on complex relationships between social cohesion and volunteering, how wise reasoning can improve intergroup relations, and the tension between increasing social cohesion and pursuing social change, among other topics.

The special issue will officially come out in March and we are overdue to contribute an editorial–something we had forgotten about entirely! So here is a sneak peek…

Let’s start with trust

Social cohesion is commonly defined as “the strength of relationships and the sense of solidarity among members of a community” It matters because it is tightly linked to trust. Deciding who to trust is the central problem of social life. Whether you are deciding whether to get married, buy a house, sign a cont…