From Generalized Trust to Critical Evaluation: The Developmental Shift in Institutional Trust Among Adolescents in Czechia, Germany, and Serbia

Political socialization research often examines the acquisition of civic values, yet the developmental shift of institutional trust during adolescence remains underexplored. This paper investigates how trust in democratic institutions evolves from early adolescence to adulthood. We propose that this period represents a critical shift from generalized, “blind” trust to performance-based evaluation. In doing so, we test the presumptions of the “impressionable years” hypothesis. Using data from the Horizon Europe “EnTrust” project, we analyze trust profiles among adolescents aged 11–12, 14–15, and 18–19, as well as an adult control group, across three distinct political contexts: Germany (n = 815), Czechia (n = 1,041), and Serbia (n = 839). Our analysis supports a “nurture-based” hypothesis of trust development, driven by three key findings. First, younger adolescents (11–12) report significantly higher levels of institutional trust characterized by undifferentiated latent profiles. They make little distinction between trust in national or local governments, the courts, the police, or the European Union. Conversely, late adolescents (18–19) exhibit lower trust levels and more complex profiles. This indicates they have begun to differentiate between institutions based on specific evaluations rather than a generally trusting orientation. Second, we demonstrate that the steepness of the decline in trust during adolescence is context-dependent. The decline is steepest in Serbia, where institutional performance is often perceived as poor, and shallowest in Germany, with Czechia falling in between. This suggests that as adolescents mature cognitively and morally, and as salience of political topics rises in their lives, they “calibrate” their trust based on the realistic performance and legitimacy of their country's institutions. Finally, we distinguish this trend from interpersonal trust, which does not exhibit a comparably severe decline. This finding supports the argument that while interpersonal trust is rooted in moral values, personality traits, and general social experience, institutional trust is inextricably linked to political performance and both direct and indirect experiences with institutions. We conclude that the adolescent decline in institutional trust is not merely cynical detachment but a developmental milestone marking the onset of critical democratic citizenship.