Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-246sw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-18T00:22:42.525Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - A new scale for the assessment of adolescents' trust beliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2010

By
Brandy A. Randall ,
Ken J. Rotenberg ,
Casey J. Totenhagen ,
Monica Rock  and
Christina Harmon
Edited by
Ken J. Rotenberg
Brandy A. Randall
Affiliation:
(North Dakota State University),
Ken J. Rotenberg
Affiliation:
(Keele University),
Casey J. Totenhagen
Affiliation:
(University of Arizona),
Monica Rock
Affiliation:
(North Dakota State University), and
Christina Harmon
Affiliation:
(North Dakota State University)
Ken J. Rotenberg
Affiliation:
Keele University
Get access

Summary

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.

Frank Crane

Trust is a key ingredient in the formation and maintenance of healthy interpersonal relationships. According to Rotter (1967), trust is “an expectancy held by an individual or group that the word, promise, or written statement of another individual or group can be relied upon” (p. 651). Interpersonal trust holds a prominent place in theoretical models of development. Erikson described the key developmental task of infancy as that of learning to see others as trustworthy (Erikson, 1963). The infant's trust in the caregiver is believed to be one of the primary bases in the formation of the attachment bond (Bowlby, 1979). Trust remains important across the life-span. Building a new relationship rests, in part, upon the partners' joint ability to trust the other as they engage in a process of reciprocal disclosure of thoughts, feelings, and life experiences (Rempel, Holmes, and Zanna, 1985). Maintenance of relationships also rests upon trust; relationship disintegration frequently results from either a lack of trust (e.g., romantic jealousy) or an outright betrayal of trust (e.g., infidelity) (Collins and Read, 1990; Feeney, 2005; Mikulincer, 1998). Given the significance of trust in the life-course of the individual, continued empirical research charting the developmental progression of interpersonal trust is necessary.

Type
Chapter
Information
Interpersonal Trust during Childhood and Adolescence , pp. 247 - 269
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Berlin, L. J. and Cassidy, J. (1999). Relations among relationships: Contribu­tions from attachment theory and research. In Cassidy, J. and Shaver, P. R. (eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 688–712). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Betts, L. R. and Rotenberg, K. J. (in press). A social relations analysis of children's trust in their peers across the early years. Social Development.
Blyth, D. A. and Foster-Clark, F. S. (1987). Gender differences in perceived intimacy with different members of adolescents' social networks. Sex Roles, 17, 689–718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolton, J., Cox, B, Clara, I., and Sareen, J. (2006). Use of alcohol and drugs to self-medicate anxiety disorders in a nationally representative sample. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 194, 818–825.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1979). The making and breaking of affectional bonds. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
Buzzelli, C. A. (1988). The development of trust in children's relations with peers. Child Study Journal, 18, 33–46.Google Scholar
Carlo, G., Crockett, L. J., Randall, B. A., and Roesch, S. C. (2007). Parent and peer correlates of prosocial development in rural adolescents: A longitudinal study. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 17, 301–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, N. L. and Read, S. J. (1990). Adult attachment, working models, and relationship quality in dating couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 644–663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Collins, W. A. and Dulmen, M. (2006). Friendships and romance in emerging adulthood: Assessing distinctiveness in close relationships. In Arnett, J. J. and Tanner, J. L. (eds.), Emerging adults in America: Coming of age in the 21st century (pp. 219–234). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Connolly, J., Craig, W., Goldberg, A., and Pepler, D. (1999). Conceptions of cross-sex friendships and romantic relationships in early adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 28, 481–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Couch, L. L. and Jones, W. H. (1997). Measuring levels of trust. Journal of Research in Personality, 31, 319–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crockett, L. J. and Randall, B. A. (2006). Linking adolescent family and peer relationships to the quality of young adult romantic relationships: The mediating role of relationship behaviors. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23, 761–780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowne, D. P. and Marlowe, D. (1964). The approval motive. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Dunn, J. R. and Schweitzer, M. E. (2005). Feeling and believing: The influence of emotion on trust. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 736–748.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Feeney, J. A. (2005). Hurt feelings in couple relationships: Exploring the role of attachment and perceptions of personal injury. Personal Relationships, 12, 253–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furman, W. and Buhrmester, D. (1992). Age and sex differences in perceptions of networks of personal relationships. Child Development, 63, 103–115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guilamo-Ramos, V., Jaccard, J., Dittus, P., and Bouris, A. M. (2006). Parental expertise, trustworthiness, and accessibility: Parent–adolescent communication and adolescent risk behavior. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68, 1229–1246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamid, P. N. and Lok, D. P. P. (2000). Loneliness in Chinese adolescents: A comparison of social support and interpersonal trust in 13- to 19-year-olds. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 8, 45–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmbeck, G., Paikoff, R. L., and Brooks-Gunn, J. (1995). Parenting adolescents. In Bornstein, M. H. (ed.), Handbook of parenting:Vol. 1 (pp. 91–118). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Kerr, M., Stattin, H., and Trost, K. (1999). To know you is to trust you: Parents' trust is rooted in child disclosure of information. Journal of Adolescence, 22, 737–752.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larzelere, R. E. and Huston, T. L. (1980). The Dyadic Trust Scale: Toward understanding interpersonal trust in close relationships. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42, 595–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, S. (2007). The relations between the student–teacher trust relationship and school success in the case of Korean middle schools. Educational Studies, 33 (2), 209–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lester, D. and Gatto, J. (1990). Interpersonal trust, depression, and suicidal ideation in teenagers. Psychological Reports, 67, 786.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markiewicz, D., Lawford, H., Doyle, A. B., and Haggart, N. (2006). Developmental differences in adolescents' and young adults' use of mothers, fathers, best friends, and romantic partners to fulfill attachment needs. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35, 127–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNelles, L. R. and Connolly, J. A. (1999). Intimacy between adolescent friends: Age and gender differences in intimate affect and intimate behaviors. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 9, 143–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikulincer, M. (1998). Attachment working models and the sense of trust: An exploration of interaction goals and affect regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1209–1224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersen, A. C., Schulenberg, J., Abramowitz, R., Offer, D., and Jarcho, H. (1984). A Self-Image Questionnaire for Young Adolescents (SIQYA): Reliability and validity studies. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 13, 93–110.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rempel, J. K., Holmes, J. G. and Zanna, M. P. (1985). Trust in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 95–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, K. G. and Mulkeen, P. (1995). Relationships with parents and peers: A longitudinal study of adolescent intimacy. Journal of Adolescent Research, 10, 338–357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rotenberg, K. J. (1994). Loneliness and interpersonal trust. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 13, 152–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rotenberg, K. J. (2001). Trust across the life-span. In Smelser, Neil J. and Baltes, Paul B. (eds.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 7866–7868). New York:Pergamon.Google Scholar
Rotenberg, K. J., Boulton, M. J., and Fox, C. L. (2005). Cross-sectional and longitudinal relations among children's trust beliefs, psychological maladjustment and social relationships: Are very high as well as very low trusting children at risk?Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 33, 595–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rotenberg, K. J., Fox, C., and Boulton, M. (2009). The cross-sectional and longitudinal relations between the coherence of interpersonal trust and psychosocial functioning during childhood. Manuscript submitted for publication.Google Scholar
Rotenberg, K. J., Fox, C., Green, S., Ruderman, L., Slater, K., Stevens, K., and Carlo, G. (2005). Construction and validation of a children's interpersonal trust belief scale. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 23, 271–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rotenberg, K. J., MacDonald, K. J., and King, E. V. (2004). The relationship between loneliness and interpersonal trust during middle childhood. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 165, 233–249.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rotenberg, K. J., McDougall, P., Boulton, M. J., Vaillancourt, T., Fox, C., and Hymel, S. (2004). Cross-sectional and longitudinal relations among peer-reported trustworthiness, social relationships, and psychological adjustment in children and early adolescents from the United Kingdom and Canada. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 88, 46–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rotter, J. B. (1967). A new scale for the measurement of interpersonal trust. Journal of Personality, 35, 651–665.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Russell, D., Peplau, L. A., and Cutrona, C. E. (1980). The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and discriminant validity evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 472–480.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Swisher, J. D., Shute, R. E., and Bibeau, D. (1984). Assessing drug and alcohol abuse: An instrument for planning and evaluation. Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development, 17, 91–97.Google Scholar
Tanner, J. L. (2006). Recentering during emerging adulthood: A critical turning point in life span human development. In Arnett, J. J. and Tanner, J. L. (eds.), Emerging adults in America: Coming of age in the 21st century (pp. 21–55). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. A. (2006). The development of the person: Social understanding, relationships, self, conscience. In W. Damon, R. M. Lerner (series eds.), and N. Eisenberg (vol. ed.), Handbook of child psychology:Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (6th edn.) (pp. 24–98). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Vazsonyi, A. T., Hibbert, J. R., and Snider, J. B. (2003). Exotic enterprise no more? Adolescent reports of family and parenting processes from youth in four countries. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 13, 129–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, T. L. and Kirmani, A. (1977). Interpersonal trust, trustworthiness, and shoplifting in high school. Psychological Reports, 41, 1165–1166.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Youniss, J. and Smollar, J. (1985). Adolescent relations with mothers, fathers, and friends. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×