Valid and Reliable Measures of Generalized Trust: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey and Behavioral Experiment

Abstract

Across the social sciences, generalized trust has been one of the most frequently examined constructs since researchers first introduced measures of it in the 1950s. Despite its significance, there is growing consensus that conventional measures of generalized trust are prone to measurement invalidity and non-equivalence, which places sociological knowledge about generalized trust in serious doubt. In this article, I advance trust research in sociology by (1) refining two new self-report measures of generalized trust—the Stranger Face Trust scale (SFT) and the Imaginary Stranger Trust scale (IST)—and (2) assessing their empirical performance on a nationally representative probability sample (N = 1,264). I compare the reliability and validity of SFT, IST, and traditional measures of generalized trust across a number of measurement validation tests (convergent validity, discriminant validity, known-groups validity, and predictive validity). Results suggest that SFT provides the most accurate and consistent measure of generalized trust. I conclude by discussing the implications of my findings for sociological knowledge.

Measuring particularized trust: A name generator approach

“…Smith (2010) attributes these gaps in trust to historical and contemporary discrimination, neighborhood context, and ethnoracial socialization. Using MST and GST, Robbins (2021bRobbins ( , 2022 replicates the common finding that Blacks have lower levels of generalized trust than Whites (Alesina and La Ferrara 2002;Douds and Wu 2018;Evangelist 2021;Wilkes 2011). But when employing SFT-a more valid and reliable scale-Robbins (2021b, 2022) observes comparable levels of generalized trust across ethnoracial categories.…”

“…Both of these accounts, however, require substantial correlations between particularized trust and generalized trust, which the literature supports (Freitag and Traunmüller 2009;Newton and Zmerli 2011). Robbins (2021bRobbins ( , 2022, however, shows that valid measures of generalized trust (SFT) are less correlated with PST than traditional measures of generalized trust (e.g., MST).…”

“…With EPT and SFT, researchers can be fairly certain that results confirming hypothesized relationships are real and not the result of statistical overlap between unobserved measures. The same cannot be said for MST and PST (see Bauer and Landesvatter 2022;Robbins 2021bRobbins , 2022. Third, Uslaner (2002) claims that race-ethnicity is "the life experience that has the biggest impact on trust (p. 91)", with Black-White differences being the most striking and prominent (Patterson 1999).…”

“…Note that SFT and MST are used to operationalize generalized trust; the former is a newly validated scale, while the latter is a traditional instrument. Further details about each scale can be found in TableA1in the Appendix andRobbins (2022).Decades of political and social theory contend that particularized trust, generalized trust, and political trust mutually reinforce each other(Almond and Verba 1963;Putnam 1993;Uslaner 2002), with varying levels of empirical support(Delhey and Newton 2005;Glanville and Paxton 2007;Newton and Zmerli 2011;Freitag and Traunmüller 2009;Glanville and Shi 2020;Newton and Zmerli 2011;Robbins 2021bRobbins , 2022Zmerli and Newton 2008…”

A bizalom és a bizalomfunkciók összefüggése : Új megközelítés az embertársakba vetett bizalom méréséhez

“…Ez utóbbi tématerületen az összefüggés-keresés tárgyai meglehetősen tágra szabottak. Így például többen vizsgálták már a bizalom gazdasági teljesítőképességre (Algan és Cahuc 2010Tabellini 2010), valamint a politikai intézmények demokratikus funkcionalitására (Bjørnskov 2007;Delhey és Newton 2005;Dinesen 2013;Freitag és Bühlmann 2009;Herreros 2004;Paxton 1999;Robbins 2022aRobbins , 2022b gyakorolt hatását. Más munkák fókuszában a bizalom és a jóléti szektor működésének összefüggése áll.…”