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.

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Despite decades of interdisciplinary research on trust, the literature remains fragmented and balkanized with little consensus regarding its origins. This review documents how this came to be and attempts to offer a solution. Specifically, it evaluates issues of conceptualization found in the trust literature. I recommend that we move away from varieties of trustmultidimensional conceptualizations of trustand toward a single trust concept built around four essential properties: actor A's beliefs, actor B's trustworthiness, the matter(s) at hand, and unknown outcomes. I finish the article by proposing a synthetic structural-cognitive theoretical framework for investigating the causes and consequences of trust in everyday life."I believe that the most serious and important problems that require our immediate and concerted attention are those of conceptualization and measurement, which have far too long been neglected." -Hubert M. Blalock, Jr. (1979: 882)

When people form beliefs about the trustworthiness of others with respect to particular matters (i.e., when individuals trust), theory suggests that they rely on preexistent cognitive schemas regarding the general cooperativeness of individuals and organizations (i.e., social trust). In spite of prior work, the impact of social trust on relational trust-or what Russell Hardin (2002) calls trust as a three-part relation where actor A trusts actor B with reference to matter Y-is not well established. Four vignette experiments were administered to Amazon.com Mechanical Turk workers (N = 1388 and N = 1419) and to public university undergraduate students (N = 995 and N = 956) in order to investigate the relationship between social trust and relational trust. Measures of general social trust and particular social trust produced statistically equivalent effects that were positively associated with relational trust. Political trust, however, was statistically unrelated to relational trust. These results support the idea that people rely on schemas and stereotypes concerned with the general cooperativeness and helpfulness of others when forming beliefs about another person's trustworthiness with respect to a particular matter at hand.

A classic controversy within the institutionalist literature has yet to be resolved. Does the state either render or erode generalized trust? The crowding out perspective contends that trust decays as a result of the state. The political-institutional perspective maintains that the state molds an environment where trust can grow. Using hierarchical generalized linear models with data from the World Values Survey and other sources, this article directly tests these competing arguments and demonstrates strong support for the political-institutional perspective. Although apparatuses of the state — specifically the public allocation of resources and legal property rights institutions — directly and positively influence generalized trust, these effects are not mediated by voluntary associations or income inequality. Instead, this article reveals that property rights institutions moderate and amplify the positive effect of voluntary associations on generalized trust. I discuss the theoretical implications of the results while exploring limitations and avenues for future research.

The Stranger Face Trust scale (SFT) and Imaginary Stranger Trust scale (IST) are two new self-report measures of generalized trust that assess trust in strangers—both real and imaginary—across four trust domains. Prior research has established the reliability and validity of SFT and IST, but a number of measurement validation tests remain. Across three separate studies, I assess the test–retest reliability, measurement invariance, predictive validity, and replicability of SFT and IST, with the misanthropy scale (MST) and generalized social trust scale (GST) serving as benchmarks. First, tests of internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and longitudinal measurement invariance established that all four generalized trust scales were acceptably reliable, with SFT and IST yielding greater overall reliability than MST and GST. Second, tests of multiple group measurement invariance revealed that SFT and IST were equivalent across gender, race, education, and age groups, while MST and GST were non-equivalent across the same sociodemographic groups. Third, an investment game established the predictive validity of SFT and MST, with IST and GST yielding poor predictive validity. Fourth, tests of factor structure and measurement invariance indicated that all four generalized trust scales replicated across samples. The present findings bolster the validity, reliability, and measurement equivalence of SFT and IST, while illustrating the compromised validity and measurement non-equivalence of MST and GST. Implications for the measurement of generalized trust are discussed.

This research examines how social networks contribute to the process of radicalization, building on work showing that obsessive (vs. harmonious) passion for a cause is linked to greater support for political violence. Study 1 ( N = 331) shows that obsessive (vs. harmonious) passion is related to affiliating with radical (vs. moderate) social networks, which in turn is associated with support for political violence. Study 2 ( N = 381) provides experimental evidence for this phenomenon, by showing that inducing an obsessive mindset produces a greater proclivity to connect with radical activists, which in turn is associated with greater support for political violence. Drawing from social network analysis, Study 3 ( N = 366) shows that network density intensifies obsessively passionate individuals’ affiliation to radical networks. The results offer insight into the group processes behind radicalization across different cultural contexts and ideologies.

This article examines whether shared religious beliefs and religious social relationships (Durkheim) and belief in a personal, moral God (Stark) negatively affect attitudes toward the acceptability of white-collar crime. In addition, using a large cross-national sample and estimating multilevel models, we test whether effects are conditional on modernization and religious contexts characterized by belief in an impersonal or amoral God. Shared religious beliefs and the importance of God in one's life are negatively related to the acceptability of white-collar crime. These effects, however, weaken in religious contexts characterized by belief in an impersonal or amoral God as do the effects of religious social relationships and belonging to a religious organization; modernization, on the other hand, does not have a moderating effect. In short, religious belief is associated with lower acceptance of white-collar crime and certain types of religious contexts condition this relationship.