The Stranger Face Trust (SFT) questionnaire and the Imaginary Stranger Trust (IST) questionnaire are two new self-report measures of generalized trust that assess trust in real (SFT) and imaginary (IST) strangers across four trust domains. Both were designed to be objective, empirically valid, and easy to administer and score. To assess measurement validity and reliability, SFT and IST along with other common measures of social trust, sociodemographic characteristics, biographical characteristics, and a survey experiment were administered to a large representative sample of Qualtrics web-panel members (N = 2,041). Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models established the internal consistency, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and criterion validity of SFT and IST. Further tests revealed that SFT and IST correlate with well-established predictors of generalized trust, while other correlates like the age–trust relation were called into question. Taken together, this article shows that SFT and IST are valid and reliable instruments for the measurement of generalized trust and that common measures of generalized trust appear to be less valid and less reliable. This article ends with a discussion of the implications and directions for future research.
AlmondGabriel A.VerbaSidney. 1963. The Civic Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
7.
BäckMariaChristensenHenrik S.. 2016. “When Trust Matters—A Multilevel Analysis of the Effect of Generalized Trust on Political Participation in 25 European Democracies.” Journal of Civil Society12:178–97.
8.
BauerPaul. 2013. “Conceptualizing Trust and Trustworthiness.” Political Concepts Working Paper Series, No. 61.
9.
BauerPaul. 2015. “Negative Experiences and Trust: A Causal Analysis of the Effects of Victimization on Generalized Trust.” European Sociological Review31:397–417.
10.
BauerPaulFreitagMarkus. 2018. “Measuring Trust.” Pp. 15–36 in Oxford Handbook of Social and Political Trust, edited byUslanerEric. Cambridge, England: Oxford University Press.
11.
BensonMichelleRochonThomas J.. 2004. “Interpersonal Trust and the Magnitude of Protest: A Micro and Macro Level Approach.” Comparative Political Studies37:435–57.
12.
BerghAndreasBjørnskovChristian. 2011. “Historical Trust Levels Predict the Current Size of the Welfare State.” Kyklos64:1–19.
13.
BerghAndreasBjørnskovChristian. 2014. “Trust, Welfare States and Income Inequality: Sorting out the Causality.” European Journal of Political Economy35:183–99.
14.
BjørnskovChristian. 2007. “Determinants of Generalized Trust: A Cross-country Comparison.” Public Choice130:1–21.
15.
BrehmJohnRahnWendy. 1997. “Individual-level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital.” American Journal of Political Science41:999–1023.
16.
BuskensVincent. 2002. Social Networks and Trust. Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands: Kluwer.
17.
BuskensVincentWeesieJeroen. 2000. “An Experiment on the Effects of Embeddedness in Trust Situations: Buying a Used Car.” Rationality and Society12:227–53.
18.
CampbellDonald T.FiskeDonald W.. 1959. “Convergent and Discriminant Validation by the Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix.” Psychological Bulletin56:81–105.
19.
ClarkApril K.EisensteinMarie A.. 2013. “Interpersonal Trust: An Age-period-cohort Analysis Revisited.” Social Science Research42:361–75.
20.
CohenBernard. 1980. Developing Sociological Knowledge: Theory and Method. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
21.
ColemanJames S.1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
22.
ColquittJason A.ScottBrent A.LePineJeffery A.. 2007. “Trust, Trustworthiness, and Trust Propensity: A Meta-analytic Test of their Unique Relationships with Risk Taking and Job Performance.” Journal of Applied Psychology92:909–27.
23.
CookKaren S.HardinRussellLeviMargaret. 2005. Cooperation without Trust?New York: Russell Sage.
24.
CowanSarah. 2014. “Secrets and Misperceptions: The Creation of Self-fulfilling Illusions.” Sociological Science1:466–92.
25.
CronbachLee J.1951. “Coefficient Alpha and the Internal Structure of Tests.” Psychometrika16:297–334.
26.
DanieleGianmarcoGeysBenny. 2015. “Interpersonal Trust and Welfare State Support.” European Journal of Political Economy39:1–12.
27.
DavidovEldad. 2009. “Measurement Equivalence of Nationalism and Constructive Patriotism in the ISSP: 34 Countries in a Comparative Perspective.” Political Analysis17:64–82.
28.
DelheyJanNewtonKenneth. 2005. “Predicting Cross-national Levels of Social Trust: Global Pattern or Nordic Exceptionalism?” European Sociological Review21:311–27.
29.
DelheyJanNewtonKennethWelzelChristian. 2011. “How General Is Trust in ‘Most People’? Solving the Radius of Trust Problem.” American Sociological Review76:786–807.
30.
DinesenPeter T.2013. “Where You Come from or Where You Live? Examining the Cultural and Institutional Explanation of Generalized Trust Using Migration as a Natural Experiment.” European Sociological Review29:114–28.
31.
DinesenPeter T.NørgaardAsbjørn S.KlemmensenRobert. 2014. “The Civic Personality: Personality and Democratic Citizenship.” Political Studies62:134–52.
32.
DinesenPeter T.SønderskovKim. 2015. “Ethnic Diversity and Social Trust: Evidence from the Micro-context.” American Sociological Review80:550–73.
33.
EriksonErik H.1950. “Growth and Crisis of the ‘Healthy Personality’.” Pp. 91–146 in Symposium on the Health Personality, edited bySennM. J. E.. Oxford, England: Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation.
34.
FairbrotherMalcolmMartinIsaac W.. 2013. “Does Inequality Erode Social Trust? Results from Multilevel Models of US States and Counties.” Social Science Research42:347–60.
35.
FehrErnst. 2009. “On the Economics and Biology of Trust.” Journal of the European Economic Association7:235–66.
36.
FehrErnstFischbacherUrsRosenbladtBernhard VonSchuppJürgenWagnerGert. 2002. “A Nationwide Laboratory Examining Trust and Trustworthiness by Integrating Behavioural Experiments into Representative Surveys.” Schmollers Jahrbuch122:519–42.
37.
FloraD. B.CurranP. J.. 2004. “An Empirical Evaluation of Alternative Methods of Estimation for Confirmatory Factor Analysis with Ordinal Data.” Psychological Methods9:466–91.
38.
FornellClaesLarckerDavid F.. 1981. “Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error.” Journal of Marketing Research18:39–50.
39.
FreitagMarkusBauerPaul. 2013. “Testing for Measurement Equivalence in Surveys: Dimensions of Social Trust across Cultural Contexts.” Public Opinion Quarterly77:24–44.
40.
FreitagMarkusBauerPaul. 2016. “Personality Traits and the Propensity to Trust Friends and Strangers.” The Social Science Journal53:467–76.
41.
FreitagMarkusBühlmannMarc. 2009. “Crafting Trust: The Role of Political Institutions in a Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Political Studies42:1537–66.
42.
FreitagMarkusTraunmüllerRichard. 2009. “Spheres of Trust: An Empirical Analysis of the Foundations of Particularized and Generalized Trust.” European Journal of Political Research48:782–803.
43.
FukuyamaFrancis. 1995. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press.
44.
GächterSimonHerrmannBenediktThöniChristian. 2004. “Trust, Voluntary Cooperation, and Socio-Economic Background: Survey and Experimental Evidence.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization55:505–31.
45.
GambettaDiego. 1988. Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations. New York: Basil Blackwell.
46.
GlaeserEdward L.LaibsonDavid I.ScheinkmanJose A.SoutterChristine L.. 2000. “Measuring Trust.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics115:811–46.
47.
GlanvilleJennifer L.AnderssonMatthew A.PaxtonPamela. 2013. “Do Social Connections Create Trust? An Examination Using New Longitudinal Data.” Social Forces92:545–62.
48.
GlanvilleJennifer L.PaxtonPamela. 2007. “How Do We Learn to Trust? A Confirmatory Tetrad Analysis of the Sources of Generalized Trust.” Social Psychology Quarterly70:230–42.
49.
HardinRussell. 2002. Trust & Trustworthiness. New York: Russell Sage.
50.
HerrerosFrancisco. 2004. The Problems of Forming Social Capital. Why Trust?New York: Palgrave.
51.
HolbrookAllyson L.GreenMelanie C.KrosnickJon A.. 2003. “Telephone versus Face-to-face Interviewing of National Probability Samples with Long Questionnaires.” Public Opinion Quarterly67:79–125.
52.
HoogheMarcOserJennifer. 2017. “Partisan Strength, Political Trust and Generalized Trust in the United States: An Analysis of the General Social Survey, 1972–2014.” Social Science Research68:132–46.
53.
HoogheMarcReeskensTimStolleDietlindTrappersAnn. 2009. “Ethnic Diversity and Generalized Trust in Europe.” Comparative Political Studies42:198–223.
54.
HuL.BentlerP. M.. 1999. “Cutoff Criteria for Fit Indexes in Covariance Structure Analysis: Conventional Criteria versus New Alternatives.” Structural Equation Modeling6:1–55.
55.
InglehartRonaldNorrisPippa. 2003. Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change around the World. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
56.
JachimowiczJon M.ChafikSalahMunratSabethPrabhuJaideep C.WeberElke U.. 2017. “Community Trust Reduces Myopic Decisions of Low-income Individuals.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences114:5401–06.
57.
KaaseMax. 1999. “Interpersonal Trust, Political Trust, and Non-institutionalized Political Participation in Western Europe.” Western European Politics22:1–21.
58.
KingGaryMurrayChristopher J. L.SalomonJoshua A.TandonAjay. 2004. “Enhancing the Validity and Cross-cultural Comparability of Measurement in Survey Research.” American Political Science Review98:191–207.
59.
KlineRex B.2005. Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling. 2nd Ed. New York: Guilford Press.
60.
KrosnickJon A.1991. “Response Strategies for Coping with the Cognitive Demands of Attitude Measures in Surveys.” Applied Cognitive Psychology5:213–36.
61.
KrosnickJon A.AlwinDuane F.. 1987. “An Evaluation of a Cognitive Theory of Response Order Effects in Survey Measurement.” Public Opinion Quarterly51:201–19.
62.
KumlinStaffanRothsteinBo. 2005. “Making and Breaking Social Capital: The Impact of Welfare-state Institutions.” Comparative Political Studies38:339–65.
63.
KuwabaraKo. 2015. “Do Reputation Systems Undermine Trust? Divergent Effects of Enforcement Type on Generalized Trust and Trustworthiness.” American Journal of Sociology120:1390–428.
64.
LaumannEdward. 1966. Prestige and Association in an Urban Community. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
65.
LeiP.-W.2009. “Evaluating Estimation Methods for Ordinal Data in Structural Equation Modeling.” Quality and Quantity43:495–507.
66.
LeighAndrew. 2006. “Trust, Inequality and Ethnic Heterogeneity.” The Economic Record82:268–80.
67.
LittleRoderick J. A.1992. “Regression with Missing X’s: A Review.” Journal of the American Statistical Association87:1227–37.
68.
LundmarkSebastianGilljamMikaelDahlbergStefan. 2015. “Measuring Generalized Trust: An Examination of Question Wording and the Number of Scale Points.” Public Opinion Quarterly80:26–43.
69.
MaDebbie S.CorrellJoshuaWittenbrinkBernd. 2015. “The Chicago Face Database: A Free Stimulus Set of Faces and Norming Data.” Behavior Research Methods47:1122–35.
70.
MalhotraNeil. 2008. “Completion Time and Response Order Effects in Web Surveys.” Public Opinion Quarterly72:914–34.
71.
MessnerSteven F.RosenfeldRichardBaumerEric P.. 2004. “Dimensions of Social Capital and Rates of Criminal Homicide.” American Sociological Review69:882–903.
72.
MewesJan. 2014. “Gen(d)eralized Trust: Women, Work, and Trust in Strangers.” European Sociological Review30:373–86.
73.
MillerAlan S.MitamuraTomoko. 2003. “Are Survey Son Trust Trustworthy?” Social Psychology Quarterly66:60–70.
74.
MullerEdward N.SeligsonMitchell A.. 1994. “Civic Culture and Democracy: The Question of Causal Relationships.” American Political Science Review88:635–52.
75.
MuthénB. O.MuthénL. K.. 2017. Mplus 8[Computer software]. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén and Muthén.
76.
NaefMichaelSchuppJürgen. 2009. “Measuring Trust: Experiments and Surveys in Contrast and Combination.” IZA DP No. 4087.
77.
NannestadPeter. 2008. “What Have We Learned about Generalized Trust, If Anything?” Annual Review of Political Science11:413–36.
78.
NarayanSowmyaKrosnickJon A.. 1996. “Education Moderates Some Response Effects in Attitude Measurement.” Public Opinion Quarterly60:58–88.
79.
NewtonKennethZmerliSonja. 2011. “Three Forms of Trust and Their Association.” European Political Science Review3:169–200.
80.
NunnNathanWantchekonLeonard. 2011. “The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa.” American Economic Review101:3221–52.
81.
NunnallyJum. 1978. Psychometric Theory. New York: McGraw-Hill.
82.
OskarssonSvenDinesenPeter T.DawesChristopher T.JohannessonMagnusMagnussonPatrik K. E.. 2017. “Education and Social Trust: Testing a Causal Hypothesis Using the Discordant Twin Design.” Political Psychology38:515–31.
83.
PaxtonPamela. 1999. “Is Social Capital Declining in the United States? A Multiple Indicator Assessment.” American Journal of Sociology105:88–127.
84.
PaxtonPamela. 2002. “Social Capital and Democracy: An Interdependent Relationship.” American Sociological Review67:254–77.
85.
PaxtonPamela. 2007. “Association Memberships and Generalized Trust: A Multilevel Model across 31 Countries.” Social Forces86:47–76.
86.
PaxtonPamelaGlanvilleJennifer. 2015. “Is Trust Rigid or Malleable? A Laboratory Experiment.” Social Psychology Quarterly78:194–204.
87.
PedhazurElazar J.SchmelkinLiora Pedhazur. 1991. Measurement, Design, and Analysis: An Integrated Approach. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
88.
PeruginiMarcoGallucciMarcelloPresaghiFabioErcolaniAnna Paola. 2003. “The Personal Norm of Reciprocity.” European Journal of Personality17:251–83.
89.
PutnamRobert. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Tradition in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
90.
PutnamRobert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Free Press.
91.
ReeskensTimHoogheMarc. 2008. “Cross-cultural Measurement Equivalence of Generalized Trust. Evidence from the European Social Survey (2002 and 2004).” Social Indicators Research85:515–32.
92.
RobbinsBlaine. 2012a. “A Blessing and a Curse? Political Institutions in the Growth and Decay of Generalized Trust: A Cross-national Panel Analysis, 1980 to 2009.” PLoS One7:e35120.
93.
RobbinsBlaine. 2012b. “Institutional Quality and Generalized Trust: A Nonrecursive Causal Model.” Social Indicators Research107:234–58.
94.
RobbinsBlaine. 2016a. “From the General to the Specific: How Social Trust Motivates Relational Trust.” Social Science Research55:16–30.
95.
RobbinsBlaine. 2016b. “Probing the Links between Trustworthiness, Trust, and Emotion: Evidence from Four Survey Experiments.” Social Psychology Quarterly79:284–308.
96.
RobbinsBlaine. 2016c. “What is Trust? A Multidisciplinary Review, Critique, and Synthesis.” Sociology Compass10:972–86.
97.
RobbinsBlaine. 2016d. “When Social Constraints Increase Trust: Considering Causal Attributions as a Source of Treatment Effect Heterogeneity.” Socius2:1–11.
98.
RobbinsBlaine. 2017. “Status, Identity, and Ability in the Formation of Trust.” Rationality and Society30:247–301.
99.
RobinsonRobert V.JacksonElton F.. 2001. “Is Trust Declining in America? An Age-period-cohort Analysis.” Social Science Research30:117–45.
100.
RosenbergM.1956. “Misanthropy and Political Ideology.” American Sociological Review21:690–95.
101.
RosenfeldRichardMessnerSteven F.BaumerEric P.. 2001. “Social Capital and Homicide.” Social Forces80:283–309.
102.
RothsteinBoUslanerEric. 2005. “All for All: Equality, Corruption, and Social Trust.” World Politics58:41–72.
103.
RotterJ. B.1967. “A New Scale for the Measurement of Interpersonal Trust.” Journal of Personality35:651–65.
104.
SampsonRobert J.RaudenbushStephen W.EarlsFelton. 1997. “Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy.” Science277:918–24.
SaylorRyan. 2013. “Concepts, Measures, and Measuring Well: An Alternative Outlook.” Sociological Methods & Research42:354–91.
107.
SchumanHowardPresserStanley. 1996. Questions & Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
108.
SchwadelPhilipStoutMichael. 2012. “Age, Period and Cohort Effects on Social Capital.” Social Forces91:233–52.
109.
SeymourJeffreyWelchMichael R.GreggKaren M.CollettJessica. 2014. “Generating Trust in Congregations: Engagement, Exchange, and Social Networks.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion53:130–44.
110.
SimpsonBrent. 2006. “The Poverty of Trust in the Southern United States.” Social Forces84:1625–38.
111.
SimpsonBrentWillerRobb. 2015. “Beyond Altruism: Sociological Foundations of Cooperation and Prosocial Behavior.” Annual Review of Sociology41:43–63.
112.
SmallMario L.2017. Someone to Talk to. New York: Oxford University Press.
113.
StrahanRobertGerbasiKathleen C.. 1972. “Short, Homogeneous Versions of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale.” Journal of Clinical Psychology28:191–93.
114.
SturgisPatrickSmithPatten. 2010. “Assessing the Validity of Generalized Trust Questions: What Kind of Trust Are We Measuring?” International Journal of Public Opinion Research22:74–92.
115.
TabelliniGuido. 2010. “Culture and Institutions: Economic Development in the Regions of Europe.” Journal of the European Economic Association8:677–716.
116.
ThomsonRobert. 2018. “Relational Mobility Predicts Social Behaviors in 39 Countries and is Tied to Historical Farming and Threat.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences115:7521–7526.
117.
TorpeLarsLolleHenrik. 2011. “Identifying Social Trust in Cross-country Analysis: Do We Really Measure the Same?” Social Indicators Research103:481–500.
118.
TraunmüllerRichard. 2011. “Moral Communities? Religion as a Source of Social Trust in a Multilevel Analysis of 97 German Regions.” European Sociological Review27:346–63.
119.
TwengeJean M.Keith CampbellW.CarterNathan T.. 2014. “Declines in Trust in Others and Confidence in Institutions among American Adults and Late Adolescents, 1972–2012.” Psychological Science25:1914–21.
120.
UslanerEric M.2002. The Moral Foundations of Trust. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
121.
UslanerEric M.2011. “Generalized Trust Questions.” Pp. 101–14 in Improving Public Opinion Surveys: Interdisciplinary Innovation and the American National Election Studies, edited by AldrichJohn H.McGrawKathleen M.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
122.
UslanerEric M. 2015. “Measuring Generalized Trust: In Defense of the ‘Standard’ Question.” Pp. 97–106 in Handbook of Research Methods on Trust, 2nd Ed., edited by LyonFergusMölleringGuidoSaundersMark N. K.. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
123.
VandenbergRobert J.LanceCharles. 2000. “A Review and Synthesis of the Measurement Invariance Literature: Suggestions, Practices, and Recommendations for Organizational Research.” Organizational Research Methods3:4–70.
124.
van HoornAndre. 2014. “Trust Radius versus Trust Level: Radius of Trust as a Distinct Trust Construct.” American Sociological Review79:1256–59.
125.
van LangePaul A. M.1999. “The Pursuit of Joint Outcomes and Equality in Outcomes: An Integrative Model of Social Value Orientation.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology77:337–49.
126.
van LangePaul A. M.OttenWilmaDe BruinEllen M. N.JoiremanJeffrey A.. 1997. “Development of Prosocial, Individualistic, and Competitive Orientations: Theory and Preliminary Evidence.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology73:733–46.
127.
WelchMichaelSikkinkDavidSartainEricBondCarolyn. 2004. “Trust in God and Trust in Man: The Ambivalent Role of Religion in Shaping Dimensions of Social Trust.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion43:317–43.
128.
WilkesRima. 2011. “Re-thinking the Decline in Trust: A Comparison of Black and White Americans.” Social Science Research40:1596–610.
129.
YamagishiToshioYamagishiMidori. 1994. “Trust and Commitment in the United States and Japan.” Motivation and Emotion18:129–66.
130.
YukiMasakiMadduxWilliam W.BrewerMarilynn B.TakemuraKosuke. 2005. “Cross-cultural Differences in Relationship- and Group-based Trust.” Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin31:48–62.
131.
ZmerliSonjaNewtonKenneth. 2008. “Social Trust and Attitudes toward Democracy.” Public Opinion Quarterly72:706–24.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
