Measuring Generalized Trust

Abstract

Survey institutes recently have changed their measurement of generalized trust from the standard dichotomous scale to an 11-point scale. Additionally, numerous survey institutes use different question wordings: where most rely on the standard, fully balanced question (asking if "most people can be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people"), some use minimally balanced questions, asking only if it is "possible to trust people." By using two survey-embedded experiments, one with 12,009 self-selected respondents and the other with a probability sample of 2,947 respondents, this study evaluates the generalized trust question in terms of question wording and number of scale points used. Results show that, contrary to the more commonly used standard question format (used, for example, by the American National Election Studies and the General Social Survey), generalized trust is best measured with a minimally balanced question wording accompanied with either a seven- or an 11-point scale.

Trust Games and Beyond

“…Obviously, responses to those depend on the respondents' interpretation of the questions and their personal experiences. The question has been criticized for being too generic (Ermisch et al, 2009) and for reducing a presumably-continuous characteristic to a dichotomous answer (Lundmark et al, 2015), although Uslaner (2012) points out that binary answers avoid “clumping” in intermediate options. Most importantly, Miller and Mitamura (2003) have pointed out that the two alternative answers refer to an assessment of other people's trustworthiness and an assessment of one's own willingness to take risks, respectively.…”

A classification of response scale characteristics that affect data quality: a literature review

“…In this direction, Revilla ( 2015 , p. 236) for sensitive questions recommends providing “answer categories with high enough labels such that respondents do not feel that their behaviour is not normal”, and for non-sensitive questions “use labels following the expected population distributions such that respondents can use the middle of the scale as a reference point as to what is the norm, and evaluate their own behaviour as lower or higher than the average”. Looking at its impact on measurement quality, scales with 2-points usually perform worse than scales with more categories, with the exception of three-point scales (Krosnick 1991 ; Lundmark et al 2016 ; Preston and Colman 2000 ). Only Alwin ( 2007 ) reports that dichotomous scales provide higher reliabilities than rating scales and absolute metric scales.…”

“…Some find evidence in favour of using 5–7-points (Komorita and Graham 1965 ; Rodgers et al 1992 ; Scherpenzeel and Saris 1997 ). Others argue that options from 7 up to 10-points should be preferred (Alwin and Krosnick 1991 ; Lundmark et al 2016 ; Preston and Colman 2000 ). Some others argue that even more categories, i.e.…”

“…More categories better. 3p is worse than 2p [MTMM validity, method effect and residual error] → YES (Bendig 1954 ): reliability independent of the number of scale categories [Test reliability] → NO (Jacoby and Matell 1971 ): reliability and validity are independent of the number of points [Test retest reliability, concurrent validity and predictive validity] → NO (Komorita and Graham 1965 ): reliability increases with the number of points up to 6p [Cronbach alpha] → YES (Lundmark et al 2016 ): validity higher in 7p and 11p points than 2p [Concurrent validity] → YES (Matell and Jacoby 1971 ): reliability independent of the number of points [Internal consistency and Test retest reliability] → NO (McKelvie 1978 ): validity is slightly better on 7p rather than 11p, reliability unaffected scale [Test retest reliability and Test validity] → NO (Preston and Colman 2000 ): reliability lower for 2, 3, 4p, higher for 7, 8, 9, 10p, decreases with more than 10p [Test–retest reliability] → YES (Revilla and Ochoa 2015 ): 11p affects positively the quality of IS scales [True-score MTMM reliability and validity] → YES (Revilla et al 2014 ): quality does not improve with more than 5p for AD scales [True-score MTMM reliability and validity] → YES (Rodgers et al 1992 ): the number of points has the biggest effect on validity; use at least 5 to 7p, better quality [MTMM construct validity] → YES (Saris and Gallhofer 2007 ): reliability can be improved by using more categories (11p) without decreasing validity; [True-score MTMM reliability and validity] → YES (Saris and Gallhofer 2007 ): the maximum value of a continuous scale has a significant effect on reliability or validity [True-score MTMM reliability and validity] → YES (Scherpenzeel and Saris 1997 ): highest validity with 4, 5 or 7p [True-score MTMM validity] → YES (Weijters et al 2010 ): 5 AD points reduces extreme response style [Extreme Response Style through log odds] → YES Characteristics of the response scales’ labels Verbal labels Fully-labelled End-points and more points labelled Endand midpoints labelled End-points only labelled Not labelled (Alwin 2007 ): labels reduce ambiguity in translating subjective responses to scales’ options (Krosnick and Fabrigar 1997 ): verbal labels suffer from language ambiguity and are more complex to hold in memory, label only the endpoints are less cognitively demanding than fully labelling; verbal labels are more natural form of expression than nu...…”

Inklúzió és exklúzió: Georg Simmel individualitás elméletének néhány vonásáról

“…Egyes szerzők határozottan a dichotóm válaszverziók mellett érvelnek (Uslaner 2002), mondván, a megkérdezettek azt világosan el tudják dönteni, hogy másokat általában megbízhatónak, segítőkésznek, tisztességesnek tartanak vagy nem; fokozati különbség tehát legfeljebb az igen vagy nem válasz árnyalására alkalmazható helyesen. Mások elvetik ezt az álláspontot, s az éles különbségtétel elkerülése céljából nagyobb skálák használatát javasolják (Krosnick és Presser 2010;Lundmark et al 2015). A standard bizalomkérdéshez eredetileg dichotóm válaszlehetőség tartozott, ám az elmúlt időszakban egyre jellemzőbbé vált a hosszabb skálák alkalmazása.…”