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• Certain issues of reliability and validity in the case of generalized trust survey measurement in light of the Hungarian data

  5-22

  Akos Bodor

  Mark Hegedus

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  87

  Trust is a field of research in social sciences that has complex, well-developed theoretical
  approaches, but its empirical tools are less precisely grounded. The most common survey tool
  for measuring generalized trust is a formula often referred to in the literature as “standard”
  trust question, which reads as follows: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can
  be trusted or that you need to be very careful in dealing with people?” The aim of the paper is to
  examine this standard survey item along the dimensions of reliability and validity. In our analysis,
  we use Hungarian data obtained from various international surveys. Our results indicate serious
  validity problems, as the standard question shows only weak linkage with additional variables,
  which, based on the conceptual background, should be in a close relationship with trust.
  KEYWORDS: trust, generalized trust, survey methods, reliability, validity