Sociological Study of the Factors Affecting Social Trust of the Country's Religious Minorities (Case study: Zoroastrian community in Tehran)

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the social factors affecting social trust of Zoroastrians community of Tehran. In this study, different theorists of trust are presented at three levels: micro, middle and macro and at three dimensions; interpersonal trust, generalized trust and institutional trust, and finally the theories of Putnam, Giddens, Coleman, Inglehart, Sztompka, Offe and Johnson have been selected as the theorical framework for the research. The research method in this study is survey, multi-stage cluster sampling and data collection tool is a questionnaire. The population of the study consisted of all Zoroastrians living in Tehran, which is about 7,000 people, according to the Zoroastrian Association of Tehran. The sample size was 191, using Cochran formula and 211 questionnaires were collected for further assurances. The results show that 20/9% of the respondents have a low level, 52/4% have a moderate level and 26/7% have a high level of social trust. In terms of Interpersonal trust, 19/7% were at the low level, 56/7% at the intermediate level and 23/6% at the the high level. In terms of Generalised trust, 13/5% were at the low level, 61/4% at the intermediate level and 25/1% at the the high level. In terms of Institutional trust, 12/9% of the respondents were at the low level, 51/5% at the intermediate level and 35/6% at the the high level. In this study, the relationship between socioeconomic status variables, feeling of social security, life satisfaction, feeling of discrimination and social exclusion with significant social trust and factors of feeling of discrimination and social exclusion were indentified as having the most influence on social trust, but the relationship between the variables of personal characteristics (other than age) with social trust has been rejected. Finally, the variables of feeling of discrimination, social exclusion and age that were inversely correlated with social trust, social trust driving factors and socioeconomic status factors, feeling of security and life satisfaction were indentified as tensile factors of social trust. The results of regression test of this research showed R2 (0/335) that 33/5% of the dependent variable changes are explained by independent variables of this study.