Little consumer knowledge about agriculture and livestock production as well as mounting concerns about the consequences of modern animal husbandry are pivotal aspects of the growing gap between famers and society. Literature shows that trust can play an important role in situations characterized by limited knowledge. In this paper a salient value similarity approach to social trust is adopted where social trust is placed on people that are perceived to hold similar goals. Determinants of social trust in farmers are examined and the influence of messages about livestock production is analyzed. The study is based on data from an online survey among 1,600 German participants containing an information treatment. Results confirm literature in that positive information increases, while negative information decreases social trust. We show that salient value similarity between consumers and farmers has a high positive influence on social trust in farmers, and moderates the effects of the perceived sender of the message.

中文翻译：

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信息对农民关于动物福利的社会信任的影响

消费者对农业和畜牧业的了解很少，对现代畜牧业后果的担忧越来越高，这是农民与社会之间差距日益扩大的关键方面。文献表明，信任在知识有限的情况下可以发挥重要作用。在本文中，采用了一种针对社会信任的显着价值相似性方法，其中将社会信任置于被认为具有相似目标的人身上。检查了农民社会信任的决定因素，并分析了有关畜牧生产的信息的影响。该研究基于对1600名德国参与者的在线调查数据，其中包含信息处理。结果证实了文献中的积极信息增加，而消极信息减少了社会信任。