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.

Neighbourhood Diversity and Social Trust: An Empirical Analysis of Interethnic Contact and Group-specific Effects

To date, neighbourhood studies on ethnic diversity and social trust have revealed inconclusive findings. In this paper, three innovations are proposed in order to systemise the knowledge about neighbourhood ethnic diversity and the development of social trust. First, it is proposed to use a valid trust measure that is sensitive to the local neighbourhood context. Second, the paper argues for a conception of organically evolved neighbourhoods, rather than using local administrative units as readily available proxies for neighbourhood divisions. Thirdly, referring to intergroup contact theory and group-specific effects of diversity, the paper challenges the notion that ethnic diversity has overwhelmingly negative effects on social trust.

Ethnic Diversity, Social Trust and the Moderating Role of Integration Policy

Increasing ethnic diversity and whether or not it impacts on trust are highly debated topics. Numerous studies report a negative relationship between diversity and trust, particularly in the US. A growing body of follow-up studies examined the extent to which these findings can be transferred to Europe, but the results remain inconclusive. Moving beyond the discussion of the mere existence or absence of diversity effects on trust, this study is concerned with the moderation of this relationship: It addresses the neglected role of subnational integration policies influencing diversity’s impact on trust. Empirical tests not only indicate that integration policies moderate the relationship, but also suggest that the influence of policies varies substantively according to the specific policy aspect under consideration.

Three essays on the concept of trust and its foundations

The present dissertation focuses on trust and comprises three empirical essays on the concept itself and its foundations. All three essays investigate trust as an expectation and rely on selfreport measures of trust. Whereas the first two chapters investigate social trust, the third chapter investigates political trust. Essentially, there are three related important debates to which the following chapters contribute. A first debate discusses problems with current selfreport measures. Scholars recently started to question whether standard trust questions really measure the same across countries and languages. Chapter 1 engages in this debate. Using data from Switzerland it studies whether different trust questions measure the same latent trust constructs across individuals belonging to three different culturallinguistic regions. The second debate concerns the socalled forms or dimensions of trust. Recently, scholars started investigating whether trust is a onedimensional construct, i.e. whether an individual's trust judgment differs for categories of trustees such as strangers, neighbors, family members and friends or not. Relying on confirmatory factor analysis Chapter 2 investigates whether individuals really do make a difference between different trustee categories and to what extent these judgments can be summarized into higherorder latent trust constructs. The third debate is concerned with causes of differences in trust across humans. Chapter 3 focuses on the role of laterlife experiences, more precisely victimization experiences and investigates their causal relationship with generalized social trust. Chapter 4 focuses on the impact of direct democratic institutions on the trust relationship between citizens and political authorities.

Personality traits and the propensity to trust friends and strangers

Research on the foundations of social trust mainly concentrates on the evaluation of one's social environment. Empirical evidence focusing on the psychological origins of social trust is quite rare and the findings of these few studies remain inconclusive. Two innovations are proposed in order to systemize the knowledge about the foundations of social trust. First, we propose using a trust measure that is sensitive to different categories of trustees and refers to a realistic situation. Second, we argue for a broad conception of personality, rather than focusing only on selected attributes. Using data from a unique Swiss population survey, we show that the impact of personality traits on trust in strangers is stronger than on trust in friends. While conscientiousness and openness, in particular, are important traits for the development of both trust in friends and strangers, agreeableness is related to trust in strangers.

Moral Opinion Polarization and the Erosion of Trust

Since Puntam's seminal work on declining levels of social capital, the question of how social trust is formed has reached unprecedented heights of critical enquiry. While most of the current research concentrates on ethnic diversity and income inequality as the main influences driving down generalized trust, we focus on opinion polarization as another potential impact factor on trust. In more detail, we investigate the extent to which polarization over morally charged issues such as homsexuality, abortion and euthanasia affects individuals' likelihood to trust others. We hypothesize that moral issues have a natural tendency to divide societies' opinions into opposing poles and, thus, to challenge social cohesion in modern civil societies. Based on hierarchical analyses of the fifth wave of the World Values Survey (WVS) — comprising a sample of 39 countries — our results reveal that individuals living in countries characterized by more opinion polarization tend to have less trust in other people.

Networks of Information Exchange Under Uncertainty: The Case of Unconventional Gas Development in the United Kingdom

Modern policy-making is increasingly influenced by different types of uncertainty. Political actors are supposed to behave differently under the context of uncertainty then in “usual” decision-making processes. Actors exchange information in order to convince other actors and decision-makers, to coordinate their lobbying activities and form coalitions, and to get information and learn on the substantive issue. The literature suggests that preference similarity, social trust, perceived power and functional interdependence are particularly important drivers of information exchange. We assume that social trust as well as being connected to scientific actors is more important under uncertainty than in a setting with less uncertainty. To investigate information exchange under uncertainty analyze the case of unconventional shale gas development in the UK from 2008 till 2014. Our study will rely on statistical analyses of survey data on a diverse set of actors dealing with shale gas development and regulation in the UK.

Consumer Behavior in Moral Markets. On the Relevance of Identity, Justice Beliefs, Social Norms, Status and Trust in Ethical Consumption

This article addresses ethical consumer behavior and uses the purchase of Fair Trade (FT) coffee to gain insights into determinants of ‘moral behavior’ in the marketplace. Our primary concern is to clarify which theoretical concepts and determinants are more useful than others in explaining FT consumption. We compare the explanatory power of consumer budget restrictions, consumer identity, social and personal norms, social status, justice beliefs, and trust. Our second aim is methodological; we contrast data on self-reported consumption of FT coffee with experimental data on hypothetical choices of different coffee products. To gain insights into the robustness of our measurement and findings, we test our propositions using two samples of undergraduate students from Germany and the United States. Our data show that consumer identity and personal norms are the major determinants of FT consumption in both samples, the results from survey-based data and from our experimental data are similar in this regard. Further, we demonstrate that studies based on a limited number of determinants might overestimate effects; the effect of justice beliefs for instance vanishes if other determinants are taken into account.

One size fits all? Managing trust and privacy on social networking sites in Russia and Germany

When it comes to platform sustainability, mitigating user privacy concerns and enhancing trust represent two major tasks providers of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are facing today. State-of-the-art research advocates reliance on the justice-based measures as possible means to address these challenges. However, as providers are increasingly expanding into foreign markets, the effectiveness of these measures in a cross-cultural setting is questioned. In an attempt to address this set of issues, in this study we build on the existing model to examine the impact of culture on the robustness of four justice-based means in mitigating privacy concerns and ensuring trust. Survey responses from German and Russian SNS members are used to evaluate the two structural equation models, which are then compared. We find that perceptions regarding Procedural and Informational Justice are universally important and hence should be addressed as part of the basic strategy by the SNS provider. When expanding to collectivistic countries like Russia, measures enhancing perceptions of Distributive and Interpersonal Justice can be additionally applied. Beyond practical implications, our study makes a significant contribution to the theoretical discourse on the role of culture in determining individual perceptions and behavior.

Leveraging Trust and Privacy Concerns in Online Social Networks: an Empirical Study

Unprecedented success of Online Social Networks, such as Facebook, has been recently overshadowed by the privacy risks they imply. Weary of privacy concerns and unable to construct their identity in the desired way, users may restrict or even terminate their platform activities. Even though this means a considerable business risk for these platforms, so far there have been no studies on how to enable social network providers to address these problems. This study fills this gap by adopting a fairness perspective to analyze related measures at the disposal of the provider. In a Structural Equation Model with 237 subjects we find that ensuring interactional and procedural justice are two important strategies to support user participation on the platform.

Effectiveness of Justice-Based Measures in Managing Trust and Privacy Concerns on Social Networking Sites: Intercultural Perspective

The unprecedented success of social networking sites (SNSs) has been recently overshadowed by concerns about privacy risks. As SNS users grow weary of privacy breaches and thus develop distrust, they may restrict or even terminate their platform activities. In the long run, these developments endanger SNS platforms’ financial viability and undermine their ability to create individual and social value. By applying a justice perspective, this study aims to understand the means at the disposal of SNS providers to leverage the privacy concerns and trusting beliefs of their users—two important determinants of user participation on SNSs. Considering that SNSs have a global appeal, empirical tests assess the effectiveness of justice measures for three culturally distinct countries: Germany, Russia and Morocco. The results indicate that these measures are particularly suited to address trusting beliefs of SNS audience. Specifically, in all examined countries, procedural justice and the awareness dimension of informational justice improve perceptions of trust in the SNS provider. Privacy concerns, however, are not as easy to manage, because the impact of justice-based measures on privacy concerns is not universal. Beyond theoretical value, this research offers valuable practical insights into the use of justice-based measures to promote trust and mitigate privacy concerns in a cross-cultural setting.