Testing for Measurement Equivalence in Surveys: Dimensions of Social Trust across Cultural Contexts

Our study evaluates the dimensionality and equivalence of social trust across cultural contexts, using new data from Switzerland and the World Values Survey 2005–2008. Whereas some scholars assert that trust should be regarded as a coherent concept, others claim that trust is better conceived of as a multidimensional concept. In contrast to the conventional dichotomy of the forms of social trust, we identify three distinct forms of trust, namely, particularized, generalized, and identity-based trust. Moreover, we dispute the view that respondents understand the wording of survey questions regarding social trust differently between different cultural contexts, which would imply that comparative research on trust is a pointless endeavor. Applying multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis to the various constructs of social trust, we conclude that one may study relationships among the three forms of trust and other theoretical constructs as well as compare latent means across cultural contexts. Our analyses therefore provide an optimistic outlook for future comparative analyses that investigate forms of social trust across cultural contexts.

Antisemitismus heute. Zur Messung aktueller Erscheinungsformen von Judenfeindlichkeit mithilfe des faktoriellen Surveys

In der empirischen Antisemitismusforschung ist die standardisierte Befragung die populärste Methode der Datenerhebung. Ihre Verwendung kann jedoch weder die von Befragten wahrgenommene Normativität des Themas noch die situative Kontextabhängigkeit antisemitischer Kommunikation angemessen berücksichtigen. Die Methode des faktoriellen Surveys (auch „Vignettenexperiment“) bietet die Möglichkeit, solche situativen Merkmale systematisch zu variieren und so ihren Einfluss zu ermitteln. Damit wird eine bessere Operationalisierung von Kommunikationslatenz möglich, einem einflussreichen Konzept in der Antisemitismusforschung, dessen empirische Plausibilität unsere Studie zeigt. Sowohl Konsensgruppen- als auch Umwegkommunikation sind in der vorliegenden Stichprobe von Bedeutung: Stimmt die Mehrheit der Anwesenden antisemitischen Vorurteilen zu, steigt der Grad der Zustimmung zu antisemitischen Aussagen ebenso, wie wenn bei einer antisemitischen Aussage der Begriff „Juden“ durch den Begriff „Israelis“ ersetzt wird. Wird auf die deutsche Vergangenheit Bezug genommen, steigt die Zustimmung zu antisemitischen Aussagen ebenfalls (sekundärer Antisemitismus). Konsensgruppenkommunikation ist besonders bei eher links eingestellten Befragten, Umwegkommunikation besonders bei Personen mit niedrigem sozialen Status zu beobachten.

Solute transport in crystalline rocks at Äspö — I: Geological basis and model calibration

Water-conducting faults and fractures were studied in the granite-hosted A¨ spo¨ Hard Rock Laboratory (SE Sweden). On a scale of decametres and larger, steeply dipping faults dominate and contain a variety of different fault rocks (mylonites, cataclasites, fault gouges). On a smaller scale, somewhat less regular fracture patterns were found. Conceptual models of the fault and fracture geometries and of the properties of rock types adjacent to fractures were derived and used as input for the modelling of in situ dipole tracer tests that were conducted in the framework of the Tracer Retention Understanding Experiment (TRUE-1) on a scale of metres. After the identification of all relevant transport and retardation processes, blind predictions of the breakthroughs of conservative to moderately sorbing tracers were calculated and then compared with the experimental data. This paper provides the geological basis and model calibration, while the predictive and inverse modelling work is the topic of the companion paper [J. Contam. Hydrol. 61 (2003) 175]. The TRUE-1 experimental volume is highly fractured and contains the same types of fault rocks and alterations as on the decametric scale. The experimental flow field was modelled on the basis of a 2D-streamtube formalism with an underlying homogeneous and isotropic transmissivity field. Tracer transport was modelled using the dual porosity medium approach, which is linked to the flow model by the flow porosity. Given the substantial pumping rates in the extraction borehole, the transport domain has a maximum width of a few centimetres only. It is concluded that both the uncertainty with regard to the length of individual fractures and the detailed geometry of the network along the flowpath between injection and extraction boreholes are not critical because flow is largely one-dimensional, whether through a single fracture or a network. Process identification and model calibration were based on a single uranine breakthrough (test PDT3), which clearly showed that matrix diffusion had to be included in the model even over the short experimental time scales, evidenced by a characteristic shape of the trailing edge of the breakthrough curve. Using the geological information and therefore considering limited matrix diffusion into a thin fault gouge horizon resulted in a good fit to the experiment. On the other hand, fresh granite was found not to interact noticeably with the tracers over the time scales of the experiments. While fracture-filling gouge materials are very efficient in retarding tracers over short periods of time (hours–days), their volume is very small and, with time progressing, retardation will be dominated by altered wall rock and, finally, by fresh granite. In such rocks, both porosity (and therefore the effective diffusion coefficient) and sorption Kds are more than one order of magnitude smaller compared to fault gouge, thus indicating that long-term retardation is expected to occur but to be less pronounced.