Ellie Shockley

The dimensionality of trust-relevant constructs in four institutional domains: results from confirmatory factor analyses

ABSTRACT 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 citys 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.

Power to the People? Psychological Mechanisms of Disengagement from Direct Democracy

The goal of direct democracy is to bring power to change laws to ordinary citizens. However, it may alienate citizens because policy language is often complex, perhaps impacting citizens’ voting likelihood and support for policies. We invoke theory on processing fluency and compensatory control motivations to explain voting likelihood and policy attitude formation. Using experiments and mediational analyses, we tested theorized links between policy language complexity and these outcomes. Findings suggest that policy language complexity motivates compensatory trust in policy institutions but this does not likely explain decreased voting likelihood. We also found that low processing fluency associated with reading a complexly worded policy or a policy presented in a disfluent font led to lower voting likelihood and less positive policy attitudes, consistent with predictions. Thus, the form direct democracy often takes manipulates the amount of support garnered for policies and ironically encourages citizens to outsource legislation to institutional elites.

The “dark side” of institutional trust

The majority of trust research has focused on the benefits trust can have for individual actors, institutions, and organizations. This “optimistic bias” is particularly evident in work focused on institutional trust, where concepts such as procedural justice, shared values, and moral responsibility have gained prominence. But trust in institutions may not be exclusively good. We reveal implications for the “dark side” of institutional trust by reviewing relevant theories and empirical research that can contribute to a more holistic understanding. We frame our discussion by suggesting there may be a “Goldilocks principle” of institutional trust, where trust that is too low (typically the focus) or too high (not usually considered by trust researchers) may be problematic. The chapter focuses on the issue of too-high trust and processes through which such too-high trust might emerge. Specifically, excessive trust might result from external, internal, and intersecting external–internal processes. External processes refer to the actions institutions take that affect public trust, while internal processes refer to intrapersonal factors affecting a trustor’s level of trust. We describe how the beneficial psychological and behavioral outcomes of trust can be mitigated or circumvented through these processes and highlight the implications of a “darkest” side of trust when they intersect. We draw upon research on organizations and legal, governmental, and political systems to demonstrate the dark side of trust in different contexts. The conclusion outlines directions for future research and encourages researchers to consider the ethical nuances of studying how to increase institutional trust.

A longitudinal and experimental study of the impact of knowledge on the bases of institutional trust.

This study examined a knowledge-centered theory of institutional trust development. In the context of trust in water regulatory institutions, the moderating impact of knowledge was tested to determine if there were longitudinal changes in the bases of institutional trust as a function of increases in knowledge about a target institution. We hypothesized that as people learn about an institution with which they were previously unfamiliar, they begin to form more nuanced perceptions, distinguishing the new institution from other institutions and relying less upon their generalized trust to estimate their trust in that institution. Prior to having specific, differential information about a new institution, we expected institutional trust to be a function of generalized trust variables such as dispositional trust and trust in government. The longitudinal experiment involved 185 college students randomly assigned to one of three information conditions. Every 3 months for 15 months, participants read information about water regulatory institutions or a control institution. At each time point, participants reported their trust in and perceptions of the trust- and distrust-worthiness of the water regulatory institutions. Participants also completed measures of knowledge of water regulatory institutions, dispositional trust, and governmental trust. Our manipulation check indicated that, as expected, those in the experimental group increased in subjective knowledge of water regulatory institutions to a greater extent than those in the control condition. Consistent with our hypotheses, there was some evidence that, compared to the control group, the experimental group relied less on their general trust in government as a basis for their trust in water regulatory institutions. However, contrary to our hypotheses, there was no evidence the experimental group relied less on dispositional trust as a basis for institutional trust. There also was some evidence the experimental group’s trust in water regulatory institutions was less affected by fluctuations of trustworthiness (but not distrustworthiness) perceptions over time. This suggests that knowledge results in the development of more stable institutional trust attitudes, but that trustworthiness and distrustworthiness perceptions may operate somewhat differently when impacting trust in specific institutions.

Compensatory Institutional Trust: A “Dark Side” of Trust

Trust scholars emphasize the importance of trust research given that trust is integral to societal functioning. However, evidence suggests there is a “dark side” to trust. We discuss a specific facet of the dark side of individuals’ trust in institutions, which we call compensatory institutional trust. We review theory and evidence suggesting that individuals’ trust in institutions can be generated in order to satisfy psychological needs. Specifically, when experiencing threats to safety, security, or a sense of meaning and understanding, individuals will sometimes trust institutions more than otherwise. A motivated increase in the perception that institutions are trustworthy may palliate existential and epistemic threats. We detail theoretical perspectives that speak to compensatory institutional trust, namely, terror management theory, theory on system-justifying beliefs, compensatory control theory, and the meaning maintenance model. We emphasize these perspectives’ relations to compensatory institutional trust by reviewing illustrative empirical examples of compensatory institutional trust-relevant processes. Altogether, we aim to illuminate the utility of the compensatory institutional trust framework in shedding light on psychological processes that may underlie findings in the trust literature. Ultimately, we make a call to trust researchers to not neglect addressing this dark side of institutional trust in their scholarship.

Change resistance moderates existence and longevity biases

Abstract Evidence has been found for existence and longevity biases—inferences of goodness from prevalence or longevity. We argue these biases actually emerge among change-resisting individuals. Our evidence suggests change-accepting individuals can even demonstrate a reversal of these biases. In two studies, change-resisting individuals’ attitudes were suggestive of existence and longevity biases while change-accepting individuals significantly reversed this pattern by evaluating long-standing or prevalent objects less favorably. Finally, we reanalyzed data from the existence and longevity biases literature previously reported in Social Influence. We found Americans identifying as more Republican—thus theorized as more change-resisting—were those who favored a long-standing practice. Altogether, we argue that existence and longevity biases emerge depending on individuals’ change resistance, indicating an important theoretical expansion.

Inspiring and Advancing the Many-Disciplined Study of Institutional Trust

The purpose of this volume is to consider how trust research, particularly trust in institutions, might benefit from increased inter- or transdisciplinarity. In this introductory chapter, we first give some background on prior disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary work relating to trust. Next, we describe how this many-disciplined volume on institutional trust emerged from the joint activities of the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation and a National Science Foundation-funded Workshop on institutional trust. This chapter describes some of the themes that emerged, while also providing an overview of the rest of the volume, which includes chapters that discuss conceptualizations, definitions, and measurement of trust; institutional trust across domains and contexts; and theoretical advances regarding the “dark” and “light” sides of institutional trust. Finally, we conclude with some thoughts about the future of and potential promises and pitfalls of trust as a focus of interdisciplinary study.