Moldova is the country where people have the least confidence in others, shows a research carried out in 49 countries. Moldova was represented in the study by the Marketing and Survey Institute IMAS. IMAS director Doru Petruti presented the data during the public debate “Society’s political culture vs the political class’s political culture: solutions for the chicken and the egg dilemma”, organized by Info-Prim Neo news agency. Doru Petruti said that the European Values Survey is one the biggest studies in which IMAS took part. “This research shows that Moldovans have the lowest level of confidence in others. I must tell you that Moldova’s results for other indicators correspond to its geographical position. We are at the periphery of Europe and this explains why the collectivist thinking is so strong here, whether we talk about labor values, family or society”, declared Doru Petruti. The expert observed that the countries that ranked the highest as regards people’s confidence in others were the northern and the western ones. “By learning to have confidence in others, you learn to associate with others, to invest, to risk, to develop yourself and so on. Well, if we don’t trust others, it means we must return to the individual values on which confidence is built”, the expert explained. The IMAS director said that the lack of confidence can be explained by the fact that we have a highly fragmented society, “divided in very diverse and small pieces- difference between north and south, east and west, between ethnic groups, age groups, conflicts, etc.” The debate “Society’s political culture vs the political class’s political culture” is the eight in the series of similar events organized as part of the project “Developing political culture in public debates”, supported by German Foundation Hanns Seidel.