Interpersonal Trust (General) (ITG)

1. Abstract

The Interpersonal Trust (General) (ITG) scale is a psychometric instrument designed to evaluate an individual's or consumer's subjective perception of trust toward a service provider, interpersonal partner, or target organization. Originally operationalized in relationship marketing and organizational behavior by Harvir S. Bansal, P. Gregory Irving, and Shirley F. Taylor (2004), the instrument represents an adaptation of the seminal commitment-trust paradigm formulated by Morgan and Hunt (1994), which in turn traces its foundational psychometric lineage to the Dyadic Trust Scale developed by Larzelere and Huston (1980). The instrument captures cognitive and affective evaluations of trustworthiness across six fundamental evaluative dimensions: sincerity, honesty, fairness, dependability, helpfulness, and consideration.

The scale comprises six items evaluated on a seven-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 ("Strongly Disagree") to 7 ("Strongly Agree"). It can be operationalized as an overall unidimensional composite of perceived partner trustworthiness or decomposed into benevolence- and integrity-based sub-dimensions. Psychometric evaluations across multiple empirical investigations—encompassing consumer banking, professional financial services, and mechanical repair sectors—have established exceptionally robust measurement properties. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) consistently confirm a coherent unidimensional latent structure with standardized factor loadings typically exceeding 0.80. Internal consistency estimates routinely demonstrate superior reliability, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging from 0.90 to 0.95 and Composite Reliability (CR) values surpassing 0.91. Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values consistently exceed 0.65, demonstrating high convergent validity. The ITG scale has proven instrumental in elucidating the psychological mechanisms linking consumer perceptions to affective commitment, customer retention, cooperative behavior, and relational switching intentions within social exchange systems.

2. Keywords

Interpersonal Trust, Psychometrics, Dyadic Trust Scale, Relationship Marketing, Organizational Trust, Social Exchange Theory, Sincerity, Dependability, Customer Commitment, Construct Validity

3. Authors

The contemporary six-item formulation of the Interpersonal Trust (General) scale was refined and operationalized by:

• Harvir S. Bansal, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Department of Management Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; and Lazaridis School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Research specialization: Service relationship marketing, customer switching behavior, and relational psychometrics.
• P. Gregory Irving, Ph.D. — Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource Management, Lazaridis School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Research specialization: Workplace commitment, multi-component models of organizational attachment, and occupational psychology.
• Shirley F. Taylor, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, Smith School of Business, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Research specialization: Service quality evaluation, consumer behavior, and service provider interactions.

The theoretical lineage of the instrument traces back to foundational psychometric instruments developed by Robert M. Morgan and Shelby D. Hunt (Graduate School of Business, Texas Tech University, 1994) and Richard E. Larzelere and Ted L. Huston (Pennsylvania State University, 1980).

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Interpersonal Trust (General) (ITG) scale is to quantify an individual's psychological state of trust regarding a designated interaction partner, whether that partner is an individual service provider (e.g., financial advisor, physician, automotive technician) or an institutional representative. Historically, psychological literature conceptualized trust primarily as a generalized personal disposition—a stable trait reflecting an individual's generalized expectancy that the verbal or written promises of others can be relied upon, as operationalized by Julian Rotter in 1967. However, interpersonal and organizational psychology subsequently recognized that relational decisions, contractual fidelity, and ongoing loyalty are governed not merely by generalized personality dispositions, but by specific, dyadic evaluations directed toward a concrete relational target.

The ITG scale operationalizes trust as the confident positive expectation regarding another entity's conduct, character, and motives under conditions of relational vulnerability and risk. In clinical, organizational, and service environments, individuals routinely face asymmetric information, cognitive ambiguity, and the potential for opportunistic exploitation. Under such conditions, relational continuity cannot rely solely on legal contracts or explicit enforcement mechanisms. The scale assesses the degree to which an individual perceives their interaction partner as embodying relational virtues that mitigate the perceived risk of opportunistic behavior.

In applied research settings, the ITG scale serves several distinct empirical functions:

• Predicting Relational Commitment and Retention: The scale enables researchers to test structural equation models exploring how trust directly fosters affective, normative, and continuance commitment, thereby reducing customer switching intentions, employee turnover, and relational dissolution.
• Evaluating Service Interventions: Organizations and service designers deploy the instrument in longitudinal, pre-test/post-test experimental designs to determine whether relational interventions (such as transparency initiatives, ethical disclosures, or employee empathy training) translate into measurable increases in client trust.
• Mediational and Moderational Modeling: The instrument functions as a critical mediating variable bridging service quality perceptions or cognitive fairness appraisals to downstream behavioral outcomes, such as brand advocacy, positive word-of-mouth, and willingness to share confidential personal data.
• Dyadic Relationship Assessment: Because the item phrasing incorporates a target blank (e.g., "In your relationship with [Provider], [Provider] is…"), the scale can be adapted to evaluate dyadic trust in peer-to-peer, supervisor-subordinate, patient-practitioner, and business-to-business settings.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the ITG scale is dyadic interpersonal trust operationalized within relational exchange settings. Psychometric and theoretical consensus indicates that trust is an integrative, multi-faceted cognitive and affective evaluation of another party's reliability, character, and benevolent disposition. In the ITG framework, this higher-order construct manifests across six interrelated focal dimensions:

1. Sincerity

Sincerity denotes the perceived genuineness, authenticity, and lack of pretense in the target partner's communication, presentation, and behavioral conduct. A sincere interaction partner is perceived as having no hidden agendas or deceptive motives. Psychologically, perceptions of sincerity reduce social ambiguity and cognitive dissonance by reassuring the vulnerable party that stated intentions correspond to actual underlying motivations. When an individual assesses a service provider as sincere, they attribute internal, prosocial motivation to the provider rather than viewing their behavior as purely transactional or manipulative.

2. Honesty

Honesty reflects the partner's commitment to truthfulness, integrity, and adherence to factual accuracy in all exchanges. Rooted in ethical philosophies of moral rectitude, honesty entails the absence of lying, half-truths, deceptive omissions, and fraudulent misrepresentations. In dyadic interactions, honesty forms the cognitive bedrock upon which risk assessments are performed. A client or patient who rates a provider high on honesty believes that the target will provide candid disclosures regarding performance limitations, fees, risks, and realistic expectations, thereby shielding the evaluator from opportunistic information asymmetry.

3. Fairness

Fairness captures the respondent's perception of relational justice, encompassing distributive, procedural, and interactional equity. An entity perceived as fair strives for balanced outcomes in which neither party unfairly exploits power asymmetries or economic dependence. In exchange contexts, fairness implies that pricing, dispute resolution, contract interpretation, and resource allocation are governed by principles of reciprocity and objective merit rather than arbitrary self-interest. Perception of unfairness triggers moral outrage and cognitive alienation, whereas perceived fairness stabilizes relational solidarity.

4. Dependability

Dependability, conceptually linked to operational competence and reliability, represents the expectation of behavioral consistency, predictability, and promise fulfillment across repeated temporal interactions. A dependable partner fulfills explicit and implicit relational covenants, delivers services according to established schedules, maintains uniform technical standards, and demonstrates competence in problem-solving. Psychological predictability eliminates relational anxiety by enabling the respondent to project future states of the relationship with minimal variance or uncertainty.

5. Helpfulness

Helpfulness measures the target's active benevolence and responsiveness to the needs, problems, and vulnerabilities of the focal individual. Extending beyond passive rule-following or mechanical task execution, helpfulness represents a constructive willingness to invest effort, provide assistance, and facilitate the other party's well-being. In consumer and therapeutic dyads, helpfulness is perceived when the provider demonstrates flexibility, offers customized solutions, and provides proactive guidance during unforeseen difficulties.

6. Consideration

Consideration captures the affective, empathetic, and respectful demeanor exhibited by the interaction partner toward the individual's subjective feelings, dignity, and situational constraints. Derived from interpersonal psychology and leadership theory, consideration reflects genuine care, listening, social attentiveness, and psychological support. While dependability and honesty address cognitive elements of integrity and competence, consideration addresses the socio-emotional bond, signaling to the individual that they are valued as a human partner rather than merely an economic utility.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Interpersonal Trust (General) scale is situated at the intersection of three major social science paradigms: Social Exchange Theory, the Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing, and Dyadic Attribution Theory.

Social Exchange Theory and the Norm of Reciprocity

Rooted in the seminal works of George Homans (1958), Peter Blau (1964), and Alvin Gouldner (1960), Social Exchange Theory posits that human interaction consists of an ongoing series of contingent, interdependent exchanges that generate obligations independent of formal contracts. Unlike pure economic transactions characterized by simultaneous barter or strict legal mandates, social exchanges involve the trade of unspecified obligations where one party must initiate action without guaranteed repayment. Consequently, social exchange cannot function in the absence of trust. Trust operates as social capital, providing the psychological safety necessary for an individual to risk exposure to opportunistic exploitation. The ITG scale reflects the social exchange premise that when target entities demonstrate sincerity, honesty, fairness, dependability, helpfulness, and consideration, they stimulate the universal norm of reciprocity, compelling the individual to reciprocate with relational loyalty, constructive voice, and organizational citizenship behaviors.

Morgan and Hunt's Commitment-Trust Theory

In their classic 1994 treatise on relationship marketing (the "Key Mediating Variable" or KMV model), Robert Morgan and Shelby Hunt identified trust and relationship commitment as the central mediating mechanisms through which relational outcomes are produced. Morgan and Hunt established that transactional attributes (such as price discounts or coercive contractual lock-in) fail to produce sustainable, long-term relational health. Instead, relational partners must develop mutual confidence in each other's integrity and reliability. Drawing upon Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman's (1995) integrative model of organizational trust—which defines trust as the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another based on the expectation of ability, benevolence, and integrity—Morgan and Hunt operationalized trust as an evaluation of integrity and dependability. Bansal et al. (2004) refined this conceptualization into the six-attribute ITG scale, demonstrating that trust serves as an indispensable antecedent to multiple dimensions of relational commitment (affective, continuance, and normative commitment).

The Dyadic Trust Model of Larzelere and Huston

At its deepest historical layer, the ITG scale directly incorporates the psychometric insights of Larzelere and Huston (1980), who developed the Dyadic Trust Scale to evaluate interpersonal trust in close dyads. Larzelere and Huston argued that interpersonal trust comprises two distinct psychological components: (1) belief in the partner's benevolence (the conviction that the partner cares deeply about one's welfare and will not intentionally inflict harm), and (2) belief in the partner's integrity (the conviction that the partner is fundamentally honest, principled, and truthful). The six attributes evaluated in the ITG scale map directly onto these two pillars: sincerity, honesty, and fairness reflect perceived integrity, while helpfulness, consideration, and dependability reflect operationalized benevolence and competence. By translating these close-relationship constructs into service and organizational contexts, the ITG scale bridges micro-level social psychology and macro-level organizational behavior.

7. Validity

Empirical investigations across psychometrics, services marketing, and management have evaluated the construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the Interpersonal Trust (General) scale.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Convergent validity evaluates the degree to which individual items reflect the underlying latent construct of trust. In structural equation modeling (SEM) evaluations conducted by Bansal, Irving, and Taylor (2004) across two distinct empirical investigations—a sample of retail banking consumers ($N = 254$) and a sample of automotive repair customers ($N = 247$)—the six items displayed uniform, high-magnitude standardized factor loadings. Across both empirical cohorts, all standardized loadings ($lambda$) were statistically significant ($p < 0.001$), with values ranging from 0.79 to 0.93. The Average Variance Extracted (AVE), calculated as:

$$\text{AVE} = \frac{\sum \lambda_i^2}{\sum \lambda_i^2 + \sum \theta_i}$$

consistently exceeded the 0.50 benchmark established by Fornell and Larcker (1981), achieving values between 0.68 and 0.76 across test environments. This confirms that the latent trust construct accounts for well over 65% of the variance observed across the measurement indicators, demonstrating convergent validity.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity confirms that the ITG scale measures a construct distinct from theoretically related relational phenomena, such as affective commitment, normative commitment, continuance commitment, perceived switching costs, and generalized satisfaction. Bansal et al. (2004) tested discriminant validity using rigorous nested-model chi-square difference tests ($\Delta \chi^2$) and the Fornell-Larcker criterion. In these tests, the unconstrained measurement model—where the correlation between trust and commitment dimensions was freely estimated—was compared against constrained models where the inter-construct correlation was fixed to unity ($1.0$). In all comparisons, the unconstrained models exhibited significantly superior fit ($Delta chi^2 > 150, p < 0.001$). Furthermore, the square root of the AVE for the ITG construct systematically exceeded the bivariate latent correlations ($r$) shared between trust and all other relational constructs, confirming that trust is empirically distinguishable from satisfaction and commitment.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

Predictive validity is demonstrated by the scale's capacity to account for variance in downstream behavioral intentions and relational performance. Consistent with theoretical expectations, ITG scores demonstrate powerful positive structural paths to affective commitment ($eta = 0.55 text{ to } 0.68, p < 0.001$) and normative commitment ($eta = 0.32 text{ to } 0.44, p < 0.001$), while demonstrating inverse relationships with customer switching intentions ($eta = -0.38 text{ to } -0.52, p < 0.001$). Studies investigating service failure and recovery mechanisms show that pre-existing high scores on the ITG scale buffer organizations against client defection following service disruptions, confirming the scale's criterion utility.

8. Reliability

The ITG scale exhibits exemplary internal consistency and temporal stability across diverse organizational, professional, and cultural research contexts.

Internal Consistency Metrics

In the foundational investigation by Bansal et al. (2004), internal consistency reliability was assessed using both traditional Cronbach's alpha ($lpha$) and Bagozzi and Yi's (1988) Composite Reliability (CR) index. For the retail banking consumer sample ($N = 254$), the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was computed at $\alpha = 0.94$, with an identical Composite Reliability of $\text{CR} = 0.94$. In the automotive repair service sample ($N = 247$), Cronbach's alpha reached $\alpha = 0.93$, with $\text{CR} = 0.93$. Subsequent replications in health services, wealth management, and digital consumer platforms have consistently reported Cronbach's alpha values ranging between 0.90 and 0.96, well above the conventional psychometric threshold of 0.70 for research instruments and 0.80 for diagnostic applications.

Item-Total Correlations and Stability

Corrected item-to-total correlations for all six items routinely exceed $r_{it} = 0.72$, with no single item removal resulting in an increase in the global alpha coefficient. This indicates that each indicator—sincerity, honesty, fairness, dependability, helpfulness, and consideration—shares extensive common variance with the core latent variable. In longitudinal and multi-wave field studies assessing service relationship dynamics over six-month to one-year intervals, test-retest stability coefficients ($r_{tt}$) have demonstrated stable reliability ($r = 0.74 text{ to } 0.82, p < 0.001$) under invariant service conditions, while remaining appropriately sensitive to objective relationship disruptions and contract breaches.

9. Factor Analysis

Extensive factor analytic investigations confirm the structural stability and dimensionality of the ITG measurement model.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

During initial item development and exploratory investigations adapting the Larzelere and Huston (1980) items, principal axis factoring and principal components analysis with varimax and oblimin rotations revealed a clear single-factor solution. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy consistently surpasses 0.91, indicating excellent sample-to-item ratios, while Bartlett's Test of Sphericity demonstrates statistical significance ($chi^2(15) > 1200, p < 0.0001$). A single primary factor with an eigenvalue exceeding$4.2$ typically emerges, accounting for 70% to 78% of the total variance across items, with no secondary factor attaining an eigenvalue greater than $0.55$.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Model Fit

In structural equation modeling frameworks, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using Maximum Likelihood estimation has tested the unidimensional specification of the six-item scale against alternative multidimensional configurations. In Bansal et al. (2004), the measurement model demonstrated superior global goodness-of-fit indices across diverse consumer samples:

• Chi-Square to Degrees of Freedom Ratio: $\chi^2 / \text{df} le 2.15$, well below the conservative ceiling of $3.00$.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values routinely exceed 0.97 (typically $0.98 \text{ to } 0.99$), indicating superior fit relative to the null independence model.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI / NNFI): Ranging from 0.96 to 0.98.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Observed point estimates routinely range from 0.038 to 0.058, with 90% confidence intervals spanning comfortably below the 0.08 cutoff.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Values consistently remain below 0.030.

Representative standardized factor loadings ($lambda$) obtained in published empirical studies are detailed in Table 1 below:

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational specifications of the Interpersonal Trust (General) measurement tool are structured as follows:

• Instrument Designation: Interpersonal Trust (General) Scale (ITG).
• Construct Evaluated: Dyadic perceived trustworthiness (integrating dimensions of sincerity, honesty, fairness, dependability, helpfulness, and consideration).
• Target Entity: Designated service provider, commercial firm, organizational representative, or interpersonal exchange partner (name of provider/organization inserted in prompts).
• Item Count: 6 items.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire, computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI), or web-based survey instrument.
• Completion Time: Approximately 2 to 3 minutes.
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert-type scale anchored by:
  • 1 = Strongly Disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Somewhat Disagree
  • 4 = Neither Agree Nor Disagree (Neutral)
  • 5 = Somewhat Agree
  • 6 = Agree
  • 7 = Strongly Agree
• Scoring Procedure:
  • All six items are formulated positively (in the direction of high trust); there are no reverse-coded items in the standard version.
  • Composite Mean Score: Sum the item ratings ($1 \text{ to } 7$) across all 6 answered items and divide by 6. Scores range from $1.00$ to $7.00$, where higher scores represent higher perceived interpersonal and organizational trust.
  • Summed Raw Score: Sum the numerical responses across all items (ranging from 6 to 42).
  • Missing Data Handling: For respondents completing at least 5 of the 6 items, mean-imputation based on the respondent's completed items is methodologically permissible; otherwise, full information maximum likelihood (FIML) or multiple imputation is recommended in structural equation modeling.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The historical chronology and licensing framework governing the ITG scale are summarized below:

• Key Publication Years:
  • 1980: Dyadic Trust Scale formulated by Richard E. Larzelere and Ted L. Huston in the Journal of Marriage and the Family.
  • 1994: Commitment-Trust KMV Model published by Robert M. Morgan and Shelby D. Hunt in the Journal of Marketing.
  • 2004: Six-item service provider adaptation formulated by Harvir S. Bansal, P. Gregory Irving, and Shirley F. Taylor in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.
• Copyright and Proprietary Status: The conceptual model and specific scale formulation published in Bansal et al. (2004) are copyrighted by the Academy of Marketing Science (published by Springer Nature). The foundational parent scales are copyrighted by the American Marketing Association (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) and the National Council on Family Relations (Larzelere & Huston, 1980).
• Permitted Use and Licensing Terms: The scale items are available within the published academic literature for scholarly research, educational purposes, and non-commercial scientific study without payment of royalty fees, under standard fair-use scholarly doctrines. Researchers utilizing the instrument must provide formal bibliographic attribution to Bansal et al. (2004), Morgan and Hunt (1994), and Larzelere and Huston (1980). Commercial deployments, proprietary client satisfaction measurement platforms, and consulting products incorporating the scale may require formal permissions or licensing from the respective journal copyright holders.

12. References

• Bagozzi, R. P., & Yi, Y. (1988). On the evaluation of structural equation models. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 16(1), 74–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02723327
• Bansal, H. S., Irving, P. G., & Taylor, S. F. (2004). A three-component model of customer commitment to service providers. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 32(3), 234–250. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092070304263332
• Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. John Wiley & Sons.
• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25(2), 161–178. https://doi.org/10.2307/2092623
• Homans, G. C. (1958). Social behavior as exchange. American Journal of Sociology, 63(6), 597–606. https://doi.org/10.1086/222355
• Larzelere, R. E., & Huston, T. L. (1980). The Dyadic Trust Scale: Toward understanding interpersonal trust in close relationships. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 42(3), 595–604. https://doi.org/10.2307/351903
• Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1995.9508080332
• Morgan, R. M., & Hunt, S. D. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 58(3), 20–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224299405800302
• Rempel, J. K., Holmes, J. G., & Zanna, M. P. (1985). Trust in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(1), 95–112. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.49.1.95
• Rotter, J. B. (1967). A new scale for the measurement of interpersonal trust. Journal of Personality, 35(4), 651–665. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1967.tb01454.x

13. Items of the Scale