Adolescent Development of Trust

The purpose of this project was to gain a better understanding of dimensions of trust and their inter-relationships during the adolescent years. Drawing from survey data collected at the beginning and end of a semester in eighty middle- and high-school social studies classes, the authors assessed the relationships between the following dimensions of trust: social trust, trust in elected officials, trust in the responsiveness of government to ordinary people, trust in the American promise, and trustworthiness of the media. The authors examined the stability of these beliefs over one semester, the correlations between various dimensions of trust, and the demographic and social factors associated with the various kinds of trust. The semester when these data were collected was in the fall of 2004, during a presidential election. Their decision to assess various dimensions of trust among adolescents was motivated by two observations. First, scholarly interest in trust as an attitude has burgeoned of late, yet there has been little work relating the multiple dimensions or targets of trust. Second, while there is a general belief that the foundations for trust develop prior to adulthood, there is no work examining dimensions of trust during adolescence. The availability of a rich data set measuring numerous dimensions of trust among adolescents makes such analyses possible.