The relationship between perceived educational opportunity fairness and social trust: an empirical study based on cognition, emotion and developmental expectation.

The relationship between perceived educational opportunity fairness and social trust is a crucial issue concerning social stability and institutional identification. However, existing research has predominantly focused on the direct relationship of educational attainment, with few studies providing a granular analysis of the complex psychological mechanisms through which fairness perceptions are transformed into social trust. Utilizing data from the 2023 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), this study employs Ordered Logit regression, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), and stepwise regression to construct an integrated multiple mediation model encompassing cognition, emotion, and expectation. Furthermore, the moderating role of internet usage intensity in this process is examined. The findings indicate that: (1) Perceived educational opportunity fairness significantly predicts higher levels of social trust, a conclusion that remains robust across multiple sensitivity tests; (2) Mediation analysis reveals that educational opportunity fairness indirectly influences social trust through three distinct pathways: sense of social fairness (cognitive), subjective well-being (emotional), and subjective social mobility expectations (developmental expectation); (3) Moderation analysis shows that internet usage intensity significantly weakens the positive association between educational opportunity fairness and social trust. Specifically, the higher the intensity of internet use, the weaker the positive effect of fairness on trust; (4) Overall, the relationship between educational opportunity fairness and social trust is characterized by a multi-path mechanism of "cognition-emotion-developmental expectation." This paper reveals the social and psychological contexts underlying the links between educational opportunity fairness and social trust. It suggests that while optimizing the allocation of educational resources, policymakers should also refine the mechanisms for guaranteeing fair educational opportunities. In the pursuit of balanced resource allocation, emphasis should be placed not only on objective inputs but also on ensuring the transparency and justice of distribution procedures, thereby eliminating the interference of non-effort factors such as household registration (hukou) and family background.