Disentangling Trust and Perceived Trustworthiness?
Towards a new Typology of Trust
Anna Almakaevaa and Nicolas Griesshaberab
a
Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR), Higher School of Economics almakaeva@gmail.com
b
Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences (BGSS), Unter den Linden 6,
D-10099 Berlin, Germany; e-mail: nicolas.griesshaber@hu-berlin.de
Over the last decades, the concept of generalized trust has become one of the most
widely discussed and disputed notions in social sciences. The main reason for this vast
attention thereby lies in the crucial role it has been assigned for society. Various scientific
contributions have associated generalized trust with important positive outcomes such as
economic wealth, effective institutions and well-being (Beugelsdijk et al., 2004; Fukuyama,
1995; Zak & Knack, 2001; Knack & Keefer, 1997; Rothstein & Stolle, 2008; Rothstein &
Uslaner, 2005). However, although the positive role of generalized trust for individuals and
societies is widely recognized, the existing literature concerning its micro and macro
foundations remains weak at best. In his recent review on generalized trust Nannestad (2008 :
432) notes: «The question of trust is a huge puzzle that is not even near solution». Indeed, a
large body of studies provides vast but inconclusive evidence on the determinants of
generalized trust and their causal relations. The first and most obvious explanation for such
inconsistency is that scholars often use different datasets and methods of analysis. The
second, and more profound, explanation concerns the issue of how generalized trust is
measured.
For many years, generalized trust has been empirically captured through a single
standard question: «Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that
you need to be very careful in dealing with people?» Thereby, a wide consensus existed that
this question is perfectly adequate to capture the underlying concept of trust in generalized
others (Uslaner, 2002) . However, more recently, criticism of this common way of measuring
generalized trust is growing.
The most often raised critique thereby concerns the fact that it has been taken for
granted that the notion «most people» refers to strangers, members of out-groups or people in
general. Yet, recent studies demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case, implying that this
measure may not be so all-inclusive as it was suggested all along (Sturgis & Smith, 2010;
Reeskens, 2012). Moreover, the radius of «most people» seems to be a country specific issue.
Delhey et al. (2011) find sufficient variance of such radius across 52 nations, using the fifth
wave of the Word Values Survey. In Asian societies, for example, the radius of people’s
answer to the standard trust question is relatively narrow, rather corresponding to the family,
known people and neighbors instead of the generalized other (Delhey, Newton, & Welzel,
2011). This is in line with the findings of Torpe and Lolle (2011), demonstrating that «most
people» may often refer to a specific group of people and thus captures not generalized but
particularized trust.
While the trust radius is a widely pronounced limitation, there has been little
discussion about another, even more important aspect. Instead of capturing trust, the
traditional question might rather evaluate the perceived trustworthiness of the general social
environment of a person (Nannestad, 2008). Although Hardin (2004: 10) notes that «the
declarations "I believe you are trustworthy" and "I trust you" are equivalent», country specific
evidence on the US and Japan shows a gap between indicators of trust and perceived
trustworthiness (Uslaner, 2007; Miller & Mitamura, 2003). To this date, corresponding crosscultural investigations on the issue, which may shed further light on this discrepancy, are
missing.
The current research addresses this debate, contributing to the burgeoning literature in
several main ways. First, it introduces a new typology of trust, which is based on the
combination of trust and trustworthiness measures. Utilizing individual-level data for 52
countries from the 5th wave of the World Values Survey (WVS), separate indicators for
generalized trust and perceived trustworthiness of others are combined, distinguishing 4 types
of trust (real/cautious/particularized/low). Confirmatory factor analysis is conducted to test
whether trust and trustworthiness are actually part of the same underlying concept or rather
present two separate concepts. Results thereby suggest rejection of the one-dimensionality of
trust and trustworthiness in favor of multi-dimensional approach.
Second, the present study aims to test whether the new typology proves better than
previous concepts and measures in explaining major societal outcomes often associated with
generalized trust (e.g. economic development, institutional quality, equality). Here,
traditional, less distinguished, approaches to capture trust may lead to over- or
underestimation of its effects since the different types trust may have quite different
implications and consequences. The effect of the newly identified types of trust one or two
important outcome variables will be therefore investigated employing aggregated crosscountry analysis.
Finally, it will be explored whether existing approaches to explain trust are able to also
provide important determinants when the concept of trust is more distinguished. Again
drawing on the WVS, multinomial logit regressions will be conducted, including various
important individual, community and societal characteristics as covariates while accounting
for the hierarchical structure in the data.
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