Table of Contents
Abstract
Social trust is a foundational element of both individual psychological well-being and broader societal cohesion. During adolescence, individuals undergo critical developmental shifts that shape their long-term trust in others and institutions. Despite its importance, researchers have historically lacked a dedicated, culturally appropriate instrument to measure this construct in Chinese youth, often relying on single-item sociological surveys or adult-centric Western scales that fail to capture the nuances of adolescent development in a rapidly changing society.
To bridge this gap, the Social trust Scale for Chinese adolescents (STS-CA) was developed as a robust psychometric tool. It provides a multidimensional assessment of how young people perceive the reliability of various social entities, ranging from close personal ties to broader societal structures. By capturing these distinct facets, the scale allows researchers to move beyond simplistic, generalized measures of trust.
The creation of the STS-CA represents a significant advancement in developmental and Social Psychology. It equips researchers and practitioners with a validated, culturally sensitive metric to explore how Social trust fluctuates during the teenage years, how it correlates with mental health outcomes like life satisfaction, and how it might be fostered in educational and community settings.
📊 Psychometric Scorecard
27
Multidimensional
📍 China
Authors
Purpose
The primary objective of this instrument is to provide a scientifically rigorous method for quantifying Social trust among Chinese youth, addressing a notable void in the current psychometric landscape. Historically, investigators have been forced to adapt adult-oriented tools or rely on single-item questions from large sociological surveys, which often lack the depth and sensitivity required to capture the complex psychological realities of adolescents.
By offering a tailored, multidimensional measure, the STS-CA enables researchers and clinicians to accurately track developmental trajectories of trust and its impact on psychosocial adjustment. This is particularly crucial in modern Chinese society, where rapid structural transformations have made Social trust a pressing issue. The scale facilitates deeper investigations into how trust buffers against mental health challenges and promotes social integration during a vulnerable life stage.
Construct
Social trust is conceptualized here as an individual's positive psychological expectation regarding the reliability and credibility of others, as well as broader societal systems. The theoretical framework underlying the STS-CA integrates sociological and psychological perspectives, recognizing that trust is not a monolithic trait but rather a multifaceted construct that varies depending on the target. It draws upon classical dichotomies—such as interpersonal versus institutional trust—and adapts them to fit the cultural context of Chinese relational dynamics, often described as concentric circles of closeness.
The instrument operationalizes this construct through four distinct dimensions: trust in relatives, trust in friends, trust in strangers, and trust in organizations. This structure elegantly captures the spectrum of social distance, moving from intimate, particularized bonds to more generalized and systemic forms of trust. By delineating these sub-domains, the scale allows for a granular analysis of how different types of trust interact and contribute to an adolescent's overall worldview.
Validity
The validation process for the STS-CA was comprehensive, employing multiple independent samples to establish a strong evidentiary base. Content validity was initially secured through semi-structured interviews with 45 adolescents and evaluations by 18 psychological experts, ensuring the items resonated with the target demographic. Furthermore, the researchers demonstrated measurement invariance across gender and educational stages, a critical step ensuring the tool functions equivalently for diverse subgroups of adolescents.
To establish criterion-related validity, the developers examined how the STS-CA correlated with established measures, noting strong reliability in their criterion instruments, such as McDonald's omega coefficients of 0.718 for the Interpersonal Trust Scale, 0.821 for the Trust Scale, and 0.800 for the Life Satisfaction scale. The positive associations found between these external criteria and the STS-CA subscales provide compelling evidence that the instrument accurately captures the intended psychological phenomena. Additionally, the scale exhibited strong convergent and discriminant validity, confirming that its sub-dimensions are related yet distinct constructs.
Convergent & Discriminant Validation Correlations
| Reference Instrument | Correlation Coefficient (r) |
|---|---|
| Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS) | |
| Trust Scale (Yamagishi & Yamagishi) | |
| Life Satisfaction Scale (Diener et al.) |
Reliability
Reliability testing of the STS-CA yielded robust results across multiple independent cohorts, indicating that the instrument provides consistent and stable measurements over time. The internal consistency of the scale was evaluated using a large validation sample of 1,214 Students, demonstrating high reliability coefficients across its subscales. This suggests that the items within each dimension are highly intercorrelated and effectively measure the same underlying concept.
Beyond internal consistency, the researchers also assessed the temporal stability of the scale through a test-retest design with 303 participants over a two-month interval. The resulting correlation coefficients confirmed that adolescents' self-reported Social trust remains relatively stable over short periods, which is essential for longitudinal research. These psychometric properties align well with established standards in psychological assessment, confirming the scale's utility for both cross-sectional and longitudinal applications.
Factor Analysis
The structural integrity of the STS-CA was rigorously evaluated using a split-sample approach with over 2,000 participants. Initially, an exploratory Factor analysis was conducted on the first sample of 1,018 Students to uncover the latent structure of the item pool. This procedure successfully extracted four distinct factors—trust in relatives, friends, strangers, and organizations—that aligned perfectly with the theoretical framework, with items demonstrating strong factor loadings on their respective domains.
Following the exploratory phase, a confirmatory Factor analysis was performed on a second, independent sample of 1,018 Students to verify this four-factor model. The confirmatory results yielded excellent fit indices, demonstrating that the observed data fit the hypothesized model exceptionally well. This two-step analytical strategy provides robust empirical support for the multidimensional nature of the scale, ensuring that researchers can confidently use both the total score and the individual subscale scores in their analyses.
Subscales
| Subscale | Items | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Trust in relatives | Measures the level of trust an adolescent places in their family members and extended kinship network. | |
| Trust in friends | Assesses the degree of confidence and reliance an adolescent has in their peer relationships and close friends. | |
| Trust in strangers | Evaluates the generalized trust an adolescent extends to unfamiliar individuals in society. | |
| Trust in organizations | Captures the adolescent's trust in societal systems, institutions, and formal groups. |
Instrument
| Test Type | Self-report questionnaire |
| Format | 27 items, Likert scale |
| Language | Chinese |
| Population | adolescents, Students |
| Age Group | 12-18 years |
| Administration | Online and offline surveys |
Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents Items
Items are currently not available
The individual items of this scale are not publicly available. Researchers interested in using this instrument should contact the original authors directly to request the scale materials.
Sample
The study utilized multiple samples totaling over 3,500 participants recruited via convenience sampling from middle schools across several Chinese provinces (Sichuan, Chongqing, Xinjiang, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, and Gansu). Sample 1 (N=1018) and Sample 2 (N=1018) were used for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, respectively. Sample 3 (N=1214) was utilized for reliability and validity testing, and Sample 4 (N=303) was used for a two-month test-retest analysis. Participants ranged in age from 12 to 18 years, with a balanced gender distribution.
Cite This Paper
Youling Bai, Luoxuan Li, Yuhan Yang, Yanling Liu (2025). Social trust Scale for Chinese adolescents. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland). https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15111436
References
54 references
- Abdelzadeh (2017). Solid or flexible? Social trust from early adolescence to young adulthood. Scandinavian Political Studies, 40 207. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12080
- Bai, C. Y. (2006). An analysis of the basic forms of Social trust. Henan Social Sciences, 4–6.
- Brown (2022). Development and psychometric validation of the sexual fantasies and behaviors inventory. Psychological Assessment, 34 217. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0001082
- Cheung (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Structural Equation Modeling, 9 233. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5
- Delhey (2011). How general is trust in “most people”? Solving the radius of trust problem. American Sociological Review, 76 786. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122411420817
- DeVellis, R. F., and Thorpe, C. T. (2021). scale development: Theory and applications, Sage Publications. [5th ed.].
- Diener (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49 71. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13
- Evans (2008). Survey and behavioral measurements of interpersonal trust. Journal of Research in Personality, 42 1585. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2008.07.011
- Fei, X. (2008). From the soil: The foundations of Chinese society, People’s Publishing House.
- Fink (2010). Cooperation, trust and performance–empirical results from three countries. British Journal of Management, 21 469. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2009.00647.x
- Finney (2006). Non-normal and categorical data in structural equation modeling. Structural Equation Modeling: A Second Course, 10 269.
- Flanagan (2010). Developmental patterns of Social trust between early and late adolescence: Age and school climate effects. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 20 748. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00658.x
- Glaeser (2000). Measuring trust. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115 811. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1162/003355300554926
- Gong (2015). Research on the trust issues of college Students in the context of social transformation. Henan Social Sciences, 23 104.
- Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., Anderson, R. E., and Tatham, R. L. (2006). Multivariate data analysis, Pearson Prentice Hall. [6th ed.].
- Horn (1965). A rationale and test for the number of factors in Factor analysis. Psychometrika, 30 179. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02289447
- Hu (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6 1. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
- Huhe (2014). Understanding the multilevel foundation of Social trust in rural China: Evidence from the China General Social Survey. Social Science Quarterly, 95 581. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12049
- Jensen (2011). Giving money to strangers: European welfare states and Social trust. International Journal of Social Welfare, 20 3. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2397.2009.00668.x
- Jiang (2010). Analysis of the reliability and validity of questionnaires. Modern Preventive Medicine, 37 429.
- Kwon, O. Y. (2019). Social trust and economic development: The case of South Korea, Edward Elgar Publishing.
- Ledesma (2007). Determining the number of factors to retain in EFA: An easy-to-use computer program for carrying out parallel analysis. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 12 2.
- Li, L. (2014). Research on donation attitude of college Students and its relationship with Social trust. [Master’s thesis, Chongqing University].
- Li (2025). Interpersonal trust and depression in female adolescents: Negative attributional style and self-esteem as mediators. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 53 e13842. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.13842
- Lin, W. (2019). Questionnaire development and measurement of adolescent Social trust. [Master’s thesis, Wenzhou University].
- Liu (2018). Parental rearing behaviors and adolescent’s Social trust: Roles of adolescent self-esteem and class justice climate. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27 1415. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-1010-3
- Luhmann, N. (2005). Risk: A sociological theory, Transaction Publishers.
- Lyun (1986). Determination and quantification of content validity. Nursing Research, 35 382.
- Pallant, J. (2001). SPSS survival manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using SPSS for Windows (versions 10–11), Open University Press.
- Paxton (1999). Is social capital declining in the United States? A multiple indicator assessment. American Journal of Sociology, 105 88. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1086/210268
- Podsakoff (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88 879. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879
- Polit (2006). The content validity index: Are you sure you know what’s being reported? Critique and recommendations. Research in Nursing & Health, 29 489. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1002/nur.20147
- Proctor (2009). Youth life satisfaction: A review of the literature. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10 583. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-008-9110-9
- Putnam (2001). Social capital: Measurement and consequences. Canadian Journal of Policy Research, 2 41.
- Qiu, H. (2010). Quantitative research and statistical analysis: Examples of SPSS data analysis, Chongqing University Press.
- Rempel (1986). How do I trust thee?. Psychology Today, 20 28.
- Rotter (1967). A new scale for the measurement of interpersonal trust. Journal of Personality, 35 651. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1967.tb01454.x
- Rotter (1971). Generalized expectancies for interpersonal trust. American Psychologist, 26 443. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1037/h0031464
- Statman (2015). Culture in risk, regret, maximization, Social trust, and life satisfaction. Journal of Investment Consulting, 16 20.
- Sutter (2007). Trust and trustworthiness across different age groups. Games and Economic Behavior, 59 364. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2006.07.006
- Thielmann (2015). Trust: An integrative review from a person–situation perspective. Review of General Psychology, 19 249. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000046
- Uslaner (2003). Varieties of trust. European Political Science, 2 43. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2003.18
- Thompson (2002). The tripartite influence model of body image and eating disturbance: A covariance structure modeling investigation testing the mediational role of appearance comparison. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 53 1007. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-3999(02)00499-3
- Vandenberg (2000). A review and synthesis of the measurement invariance literature: Suggestions, practices, and recommendations for organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 3 4. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1177/109442810031002
- Wang (2024). Urban-rural disparities in the association between Social trust patterns and changes in depressive symptoms: Longitudinal evidence from an elderly Chinese population. BMJ Open, 14 e086508. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-086508
- Flanagan (2012). Parenting practices and the development of adolescents’ Social trust. Journal of Adolescence, 35 549. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.09.006
- Wu, M. (2010). Questionnaire statistical analysis practice: SPSS operation and application, Chongqing University Press.
- Wu, M. (2020). Structural equation modeling: AMOS practical advancement, Chongqing University Press.
- Xiong, C., Yao, Y., Hu, T., Cheng, J., Xu, S., and Liu, C. (2023). The role of subjective well-being in mediating Social trust to the mental health of health workers. Healthcare, 11, (9). 🔗 https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11091327
- Xu (2023). Social trust, social capital, and subjective well-being of rural residents: Micro-empirical evidence based on the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10 49. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01532-1
- Yamagishi (2015). Two-component model of general trust: Predicting behavioral trust from attitudinal trust. Social Cognition, 33 436. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2015.33.5.436
- Yamagishi (1994). Trust and commitment in the United States and Japan. Motivation and Emotion, 18 129. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02249397
- Zhang (2020). Social trust and satisfaction with life: A cross-lagged panel analysis based on representative samples from 18 societies. Social Science & Medicine, 251 112901. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112901
- Zhao (2024). The relationship between trust and well-being: A meta-analysis. Journal of Happiness Studies, 25 56. 🔗 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-024-00737-8
Cite this article
Mohammed looti (2026). Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Retrieved from https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/social-trust-scale-for-chinese-adolescents/
Mohammed looti. "Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 13 Aug. 2026, https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/social-trust-scale-for-chinese-adolescents/.
Mohammed looti. "Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents." PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, 2026. https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/social-trust-scale-for-chinese-adolescents/.
Mohammed looti (2026) 'Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents', PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. Available at: https://scales.arabpsychology.com/s/social-trust-scale-for-chinese-adolescents/.
[1] Mohammed looti, "Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents," PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES, vol. X, no. Y, ص Z-Z, August, 2026.
Mohammed looti. Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCALES. 2026;vol(issue):pages.