PROPOSAL ABSTRACT:

Name of Principal
Investigator: Juan Carlos Oyanedel

Proposal Title: The institutional basis of subjective well-being: understanding

the role of trust in the Criminal Justice System and ontological
security in comparative perspective.

Improving citizens’ subjective well-being (SWB) has become an increasingly visible policy goal across
industrialized countries, but insofar as any policies have been put into place, these have tended to be largely
aspirational, with any positive initiatives being based on public health promotion as their policy template.
Very little thought seems to have been given to the role that can be played by key institutions of the State,
such as the treasury, the criminal justice system and the educational system. This proposal explores the role
that might be played in promoting SWB by one state institution, the criminal justice system. We believe that
the proposal is innovative and ground-breaking, and we would claim to be only at the start of an exploration
of how the promotion of SWB might be incorporated into the policy goals of criminal justice.

SWB is associated with socially desirable outcomes, such as good mental health, a tendency towards prosocial
behavior and predictive capabilities towards depressive states and skills to deal with stressful life events.
Research on SWB has also shown institutional effects, such as higher political democratic participation by
those with more well-being. Institutional arrangements have also been identified as affecting SWB, with
higher SWB in countries with economic freedom and zones with direct democratic participation. Bjørnskov et
al (2010) report differences on institutional effects based on wealth, showing that in low-income countries
the effects of economic–judicial institutions on SWB dominate those of political institutions. The idea that
perceived fairness mediates the relationship between income inequality and SWB has also been supported.

Research in fairness perceptions has been extensively developed in criminal justice. Law-related attitudes,
such as trust in the courts and the police, have been a focus of extensive research. These legitimacy-related
concepts have usually been associated with a reduced propensity to commit crimes and increased compliance
with legal authorities. Jackson et al (2013), for instance, note that police legitimacy influences reducing
justifications for private violence. Although the relationship between the legitimacy of criminal justice
institutions and compliance with the law has been scarcely researched in Latin America, recent comparative
research reveals the existence of a relationship between reform of criminal justice and increased public trust
in both courts and police forces across the region (Oyanedel, 2016). Nivette (2016) reports that subjective
indicators of institutional illegitimacy, personal victimization, and punitive attitudes are robust predictors of
support for vigilantism in Latin American Countries.

Nonetheless, there is a lack of studies relating law-related attitudes and their possible effects on individual
SWB. This project aims to explore these relationships, and the possible mediating role played by a mid-level
variable, ontological security (OS), in linking them. The concept, popularized by Giddens (1990) refers to the
confidence that individuals have in the continuity of their self-identity and the constancy of their surrounding
social and material environments of action. OS is not only an evaluation of the institutional environment
where individuals live but also a condition for it. As Giddens notes “a sense of the reliability of persons and
things, so central to the notion of trust, is basic to feelings of OS; hence the two are psychologically closely
related” (1990:92). Following this basic idea, less confidence in Criminal Justice institutions should mean
less OS. The lack of OS involves the lack of basic trust, having as an outcome a persistent existential anxiety.
In this sense, we should expect that low trust in criminal justice institutions should be associated with lower
SWB, being this relationship mediated by OS.

This project will focus on two main tasks: the first is the creation of a scale measuring OS, and the second
is the analysis of the relationships between trust in the criminal justice system, OS, and SWB. We will create
and validate a scale of OS and apply a survey in four different Latin American countries’ capitals, each of
them showing different levels of trust in the courts and the police (Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay).

The work plan is structured as follows: Year one: development of a scale of OS and questionnaire testing.
Year two: Application of a survey in four countries. Years three and four: data analysis and reporting. Among
the products of this project are at least three articles and four international seminars to be carried out in
Santiago de Chile.
2018 FONDECYT Regular Competition