Differential trust incorporation: How immigrants develop institutional trust faster than social trust

Do immigrants develop trust in institutions and trust in people at the same rate? Using World Values Survey Wave 7 data from 21 countries (N = 33,929), this study demonstrates that they do not. Within countries, immigrants score 0.14 points higher than natives on institutional trust but only 0.03 points higher on social trust, producing a fivefold asymmetry we term differential trust incorporation. This pattern reflects different production functions: institutional trust is built through transactions with legible, standardized procedures accessible to newcomers, while social trust requires accumulated relational experience that takes longer to develop. Crucially, the gap narrows with integration. Naturalized citizens show gaps 51% smaller than noncitizens, and second-generation immigrants show gaps indistinguishable from natives. The gap also widens in stronger institutional environments, suggesting immigrants respond to actual institutional characteristics rather than projecting generalized optimism. These findings reframe immigrant trust from a deficit model to a temporal incorporation framework.