TY - JOUR
T1 - The dimensionality of trust-relevant constructs in four institutional domains
T2 - Results from confirmatory factor analyses
AU - Pytlikzillig, Lisa M.
AU - Hamm, Joseph A.
AU - Shockley, Ellie
AU - Herian, Mitchel N.
AU - Neal, Tess M.S.
AU - Kimbrough, Christopher D.
AU - Tomkins, Alan J.
AU - Bornstein, Brian H.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by the NSF [grant numbers 0903469, 0965465, 1061635, 1154855, 1228559, 1228937, and 1353980].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Peter Ping Li.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Using confirmatory factor analyses and multiple indicators per construct, we examined a number of theoretically derived factor structures pertaining to numerous trust-relevant constructs (from 9 to 12) across four institutional contexts (police, local governance, natural resources, state governance) and multiple participant-types (college students via an online survey, community residents as part of a city’s budget engagement activity, a random sample of rural landowners, and a national sample of adult Americans via an Amazon Mechanical Turk study). Across studies, a number of common findings emerged. First, the best fitting models in each study maintained separate factors for each trust-relevant construct. Furthermore, post hoc analyses involving addition of higher-order factors tended to fit better than collapsing of factors. Second, dispositional trust was easily distinguishable from the other trust-related constructs, and positive and negative constructs were often distinguishable. However, the items reflecting positive trust attitude constructs or positive trustworthiness perceptions showed low discriminant validity. Differences in findings between studies raise questions warranting further investigation in future research, including differences in correlations among latent constructs varying from very high (e.g. 12 inter-factor correlations above.9 in Study 2) to more moderate (e.g. only three correlations above.8 in Study 4). Further, the results from one study (Study 4) suggested that legitimacy, fairness, and voice were especially highly correlated and may form a single higher-order factor, but the other studies did not. Future research is needed to determine when and why different higher-order factor structures may emerge in different institutional contexts or with different samples.
AB - Using confirmatory factor analyses and multiple indicators per construct, we examined a number of theoretically derived factor structures pertaining to numerous trust-relevant constructs (from 9 to 12) across four institutional contexts (police, local governance, natural resources, state governance) and multiple participant-types (college students via an online survey, community residents as part of a city’s budget engagement activity, a random sample of rural landowners, and a national sample of adult Americans via an Amazon Mechanical Turk study). Across studies, a number of common findings emerged. First, the best fitting models in each study maintained separate factors for each trust-relevant construct. Furthermore, post hoc analyses involving addition of higher-order factors tended to fit better than collapsing of factors. Second, dispositional trust was easily distinguishable from the other trust-related constructs, and positive and negative constructs were often distinguishable. However, the items reflecting positive trust attitude constructs or positive trustworthiness perceptions showed low discriminant validity. Differences in findings between studies raise questions warranting further investigation in future research, including differences in correlations among latent constructs varying from very high (e.g. 12 inter-factor correlations above.9 in Study 2) to more moderate (e.g. only three correlations above.8 in Study 4). Further, the results from one study (Study 4) suggested that legitimacy, fairness, and voice were especially highly correlated and may form a single higher-order factor, but the other studies did not. Future research is needed to determine when and why different higher-order factor structures may emerge in different institutional contexts or with different samples.
KW - Confidence
KW - Dispositional trust
KW - Fairness
KW - Justice
KW - Legitimacy
KW - Trust in institutions
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U2 - 10.1080/21515581.2016.1151359
DO - 10.1080/21515581.2016.1151359
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85017592612
SN - 2151-5581
VL - 6
SP - 111
EP - 150
JO - Journal of Trust Research
JF - Journal of Trust Research
IS - 2
ER -