1. Abstract
Social trust serves as an indispensable psychological and social resource that promotes individual subjective well-being, prosocial engagement, and broader societal stability. During the transformative developmental stage of adolescence, young people experience critical shifts in cognitive maturation, identity formation, and social perspective-taking, which collectively reconfigure their baseline expectations regarding the dependability, fairness, and benevolence of interpersonal partners and formal societal institutions. Historically, psychological inquiry into adolescent social trust in mainland China has been constrained by a reliance on single-item sociological metrics or adult-centric measurement tools developed in Western cultural environments. Such approaches frequently overlook the unique relational architecture of Chinese culture and fail to capture the developmental nuances of teenage life in a rapidly modernizing society.
To overcome these methodological and theoretical limitations, the Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents (STS-CA) was conceptualized and validated as a comprehensive, multidimensional psychometric instrument. Comprising 27 self-report items administered via a multi-point Likert response format, the instrument operationalizes trust across four theoretically grounded and culturally salient dimensions: Trust in Relatives, Trust in Friends, Trust in Strangers, and Trust in Organizations. This structural taxonomy reflects the transition from intimate kinship circles to generalized societal entities, mirroring indigenous relational models alongside contemporary institutional frameworks.
Psychometric evaluation of the STS-CA across diverse adolescent samples (totaling over 3,500 middle and high school students aged 12 to 18 across multiple Chinese provinces) demonstrated exceptional structural integrity, internal consistency, and temporal stability. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA; N = 1,018) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; N = 1,018) verified the distinct four-factor latent model with robust goodness-of-fit indices. Criterion-related, convergent, and discriminant validities were corroborated through statistically significant associations with established benchmarks, including Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Scale, Yamagishi’s General Trust Scale, and Diener’s Satisfaction with Life Scale. Longitudinal stability was further confirmed via a two-month test-retest paradigm (N = 303). In summary, the STS-CA offers developmental psychologists, educational researchers, and mental health professionals an empirically rigorous, culturally anchored instrument designed to track trust trajectories, identify developmental vulnerabilities, and assess school- and community-based interventions.
2. Keywords
Social trust, Adolescents, Psychometrics, Scale development, Chinese population, Factor analysis, Interpersonal trust, Institutional trust, Relational dynamics, Structural equation modeling, Measurement invariance, Adolescent mental health
3. Authors
The Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents was developed and psychometrically validated by a collaborative research team based primarily at Southwest University in Chongqing, China:
- Youling Bai – Southwest University, Chongqing, China; Corresponding Author Contact: [email protected]
- Luoxuan Li – Southwest University, Chongqing, China; Email: [email protected]
- Yuhan Yang – Southwest University, Chongqing, China; Email: [email protected]
- Yanling Liu – Southwest University, Chongqing, China; Email: [email protected]
4. Purpose
The primary aim in developing the Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents was to fill a longstanding empirical and methodological void within developmental psychometrics. While social trust has long been recognized as a cornerstone of mental health, prosocial orientation, and civic engagement, empirical research examining non-adult populations in non-Western settings has faced notable measurement hurdles. Historically, scholars investigating social trust in Chinese cohorts were compelled to utilize single-item questions borrowed from macroscopic cross-national surveys (e.g., the World Values Survey or the Chinese General Social Survey) or adapt adult-targeted Western measures, such as Julian Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Scale. These existing scales often fail to capture the ecological contexts of secondary school students or the nuanced distinction between personalized relational networks and institutional trust within modern Chinese society.
Adolescence represents a critical window of social-cognitive development characterized by expanding social radii. As individuals transition from primary family socialization into wider peer hierarchies and educational institutions, their cognitive models of human benevolence and systemic fairness undergo structural consolidation. In the context of contemporary China, rapid economic development, urbanization, and digital connectivity have reshaped social interaction patterns, creating a coexistence of traditional kinship expectations and modern institutional dependencies. Without an age-attuned and culturally situated measurement tool, researchers could neither delineate the trajectory of youth trust across distinct relational domains nor identify the unique protective effects of trust against psychological distress.
From an applied perspective, the STS-CA provides secondary educators, school psychologists, and child guidance clinicians with a standardized diagnostic tool. High levels of generalized trust are longitudinally associated with decreased risks of internalizing disorders, including depression, loneliness, and social anxiety, while lower institutional trust often signals systemic alienation, school disengagement, or perceived social injustice. By measuring trust across distinct sub-domains, practitioners can formulate targeted interventions: an adolescent displaying strong peer trust but impoverished institutional trust may require different psychoeducational support than one exhibiting generalized mistrust across both personal and societal levels. Furthermore, the instrument equips policymakers and educational administrators with a metric to evaluate how school climate, civic education, and community engagement programs cultivate prosocial capital in youth.
5. Psychological Construct
Social trust within the STS-CA is operationalized as an individual’s generalized positive psychological expectation and cognitive confidence regarding the reliability, honesty, benevolence, and fairness of other individuals as well as social systems. Drawing upon both cross-cultural psychology and developmental theory, the construct is conceptualized not as an undifferentiated, unitary disposition, but as a hierarchical, multidimensional framework delineated by social distance and institutional context. The instrument partitions social trust into four specialized dimensions:
1. Trust in Relatives
This subscale assesses an adolescent’s cognitive and affective confidence in members of their immediate family and extended kinship network. In Chinese psychology, kinship represents the foundational core of personal security, historically conceptualized as an ascribed, unconditional sphere of mutual obligation. Within the STS-CA, this dimension evaluates the adolescent’s belief that family members will act with unwavering benevolence, maintain promises, and provide emotional and material protection without exploitative motives. It reflects particularized trust grounded in biological relatedness, domestic intimacy, and shared household socialization.
2. Trust in Friends
This dimension measures the degree of perceived dependability, emotional safety, and loyalty an adolescent invests in their peer circle and close personal confidants. During adolescence, the relative psychological weight of peer relationships intensifies significantly. Unlike ascribed kinship bonds, peer trust is voluntary, reciprocal, and negotiated through ongoing social interaction. This subscale measures the adolescent’s confidence that peers will maintain confidentiality, exhibit mutual assistance during times of distress, refrain from malicious gossip, and honor social reciprocity in school and leisure contexts.
3. Trust in Strangers
Representing the transition from particularized to generalized trust, this subscale captures an adolescent’s baseline expectation regarding unfamiliar individuals encountered in public, commercial, or digital spaces. Trust in strangers operationalizes the “radius of trust”—the willingness to attribute basic goodwill, moral restraint, and honesty to individuals outside one’s immediate in-group. In developmental psychometrics, this dimension serves as an indicator of an adolescent’s broader world view, tracking whether they perceive the broader social sphere as inherently predatory or fundamentally collaborative and safe.
4. Trust in Organizations
This subscale captures macro-level, institutional trust directed toward societal systems, public institutions, formal organizations, and rule-governed collective bodies (e.g., educational systems, governmental structures, legal entities, and social services). Rather than evaluating individual interpersonal dynamics, this dimension gauges an adolescent’s faith in systemic integrity, procedural fairness, institutional competence, and rule compliance. It reflects the respondent’s developing civic consciousness and belief in the impartiality and dependability of the societal structures that govern civic life.
6. Theoretical Framework
The structural composition of the STS-CA integrates foundational paradigms from developmental psychology, relational sociology, and institutional social capital theory.
The Sociological Differential Mode of Association
A central theoretical anchor of the STS-CA is the seminal work of Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong (1947/2008), specifically his conceptualization of the differential mode of association (chaxugeju, 差序格局). Fei postulated that traditional Chinese social structure is organized not through distinct group boundaries as seen in individualistic societies, but through a series of concentric relational circles radiating outward from the individual self, akin to ripples generated by a stone cast into water. Closeness, moral obligations, and interpersonal trust decrease as one moves from the intimate center (nuclear family and extended kin) outward to close friends, acquaintances, and ultimately unfamiliar strangers.
The STS-CA translates this sociological reality into a psychometric model: Trust in Relatives represents the innermost circle characterized by strong emotional commitment and filial piety; Trust in Friends forms the adjacent layer mediated by reciprocal affective exchange (renqing and guanxi); and Trust in Strangers constitutes the outer perimeter where relational obligations traditionally weaken. By grounding the scale within this concentric taxonomy, the developers ensured high ecological validity for adolescents navigating traditional cultural norms alongside modern, impersonal social environments.
Social Learning and Interpersonal Expectancy Theory
From a psychological vantage point, the scale builds upon Julian Rotter’s (1967, 1971) cognitive social learning framework. Rotter defined interpersonal trust as a generalized expectancy held by an individual that the word, promise, or written statement of another individual or group can be relied upon. As adolescents mature, their cognitive development facilitates more complex causal attributions and generalized expectancies across diverse interpersonal contexts. These expectancies evolve from repeated social reinforcements, direct parental modeling, and personal exposure to trustworthy or deceitful behavior within school and community settings.
Sociological and Systems Theories of Trust
To conceptualize the macro-level dimension of the STS-CA, the authors incorporated modern sociological perspectives, notably Niklas Luhmann’s (2005) systems theory and Robert Putnam’s (2001) social capital paradigm. Luhmann characterized trust as an essential cognitive mechanism for reducing social complexity; without trust in formal institutions and systemic procedures, the cognitive demands of navigating modern civilization become overwhelming. Putnam similarly highlighted that institutional trust forms the bedrock of civic engagement, democratic stability, and communal prosperity. In parallel, Toshio Yamagishi’s (1994, 2015) cross-cultural models of trust distinguish between assurance (confidence rooted in monitoring or relational constraints within closed networks) and genuine trust (positive expectations in situations characterized by social uncertainty). The STS-CA integrates these insights by providing an instrument that evaluates particularized assurance (relatives and close friends) alongside generalized, systemic trust (strangers and public organizations).
7. Validity
The psychometric validation of the STS-CA followed contemporary testing guidelines, establishing robust content, construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity across independent adolescent samples.
Content and Face Validity
Content development began with comprehensive qualitative fieldwork involving semi-structured interviews with 45 adolescents (aged 12 to 18) to delineate their spontaneous conceptualizations of reliability, betrayal, and institutional fairness. Following initial item pooling, an expert review panel comprising 18 developmental and psychometric specialists evaluated the items for theoretical fit, age-appropriate language, cultural resonance, and syntactic clarity. Content Validity Indices (I-CVI and S-CVI) were calculated in accordance with established psychometric criteria (Polit & Beck, 2006), resulting in the retention of 27 refined items.
Convergent and Discriminant Validity
Convergent and discriminant validity were evaluated within a dedicated validation cohort (Sample 3, N = 1,214). Structural subscales demonstrated robust internal associations while maintaining clear discriminant boundaries, as latent factor intercorrelations fell comfortably below standard collinearity thresholds (r < .80), indicating that the four subscales assess related yet structurally independent domains of trust.
External convergent validity was established through correlation analyses with established criterion instruments:
- Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS; Rotter, 1967): The STS-CA subscales demonstrated statistically significant positive correlations with overall ITS scores, supporting theoretical congruence while offering a more granular division between intimate and institutional targets. The ITS displayed high internal reliability within this validation sample (McDonald’s ω = 0.718).
- General Trust Scale (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994): Statistically significant correlations emerged between the STS-CA Trust in Strangers and Trust in Organizations subscales and Yamagishi’s General Trust metric (McDonald’s ω = 0.821), confirming that the instrument successfully gauges generalized social confidence outside private relational bonds.
Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity
To determine criterion-related utility, the authors examined associations between adolescent social trust and subjective well-being using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al., 1985) (McDonald’s ω = 0.800). Consistent with extensive developmental literature (Proctor et al., 2009; Zhao et al., 2024), all four subscales of the STS-CA correlated positively and significantly with adolescent life satisfaction. Multiple regression analyses demonstrated that trust in family and school-based peer networks accounted for unique variance in adolescent emotional well-being, while trust in organizations was positively associated with overall social adjustment.
Measurement Invariance
Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (Vandenberg & Lance, 2000; Cheung & Rensvold, 2002) confirmed measurement invariance across demographic groups:
- Gender Invariance: Configural, metric (weak), and scalar (strong) invariance were satisfied when comparing male and female adolescents, demonstrating that item loadings and intercepts function equivalently across sexes (ΔCFI < .010, ΔRMSEA < .015).
- Educational Stage Invariance: Invariance was similarly supported across junior high school students (grades 7–9, early adolescence) and senior high school students (grades 10–12, late adolescence), confirming the scale’s structural stability across developmental transitions.
8. Reliability
The STS-CA demonstrated strong reliability across independent samples totaling several thousand respondents, satisfying standard benchmarks for psychometric stability.
Internal Consistency
Internal consistency was calculated across the large validation sample of 1,214 secondary students using both Cronbach’s alpha (α) and McDonald’s omega (ω), the latter providing a more robust estimate of composite reliability by relaxing assumptions of tau-equivalence:
- Full Scale: The overall 27-item scale exhibited high internal reliability, demonstrating that the tool functions coherently as an omnibus indicator of general social trust.
- Trust in Relatives Subscale: Demonstrated strong internal consistency, confirming high homogeneity among items assessing kinship reliability.
- Trust in Friends Subscale: Displayed high composite reliability, confirming stable measurement of peer loyalty and reliance.
- Trust in Strangers Subscale: Produced robust alpha and omega coefficients, confirming that adolescent perceptions of unfamiliar individuals can be measured with minimal error variance.
- Trust in Organizations Subscale: Exhibited high internal consistency across items targeting formal institutions, judicial structures, and systemic rules.
Temporal Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)
To evaluate temporal stability, a dedicated longitudinal subsample of 303 adolescents (Sample 4) completed the STS-CA twice over a two-month interval. Test-retest correlation coefficients across all four subscales and the total scale revealed statistically significant temporal consistency. These findings indicate that while social trust responds to significant developmental events, baseline generalized expectations remain stable across multi-week periods, making the instrument well suited for longitudinal cohort studies and pre-post intervention assessments.
9. Factor Analysis
The structural dimensionality of the 27-item STS-CA was evaluated using a split-sample structural equation modeling approach with two large cohorts (total N = 2,036) recruited from secondary schools across Sichuan, Chongqing, Xinjiang, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, and Gansu provinces.
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
Exploratory factor analysis was performed on Sample 1 (N = 1,018). Sampling adequacy and data factorability were verified via the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity, both meeting psychometric guidelines. To determine the optimal number of factors, parallel analysis (Horn, 1965; Ledesma & Valero-Mora, 2007) was conducted alongside scree plot examination. Four clear latent factors had empirical eigenvalues exceeding those generated from random permutations:
- Factor 1 (Trust in Relatives): Items loaded prominently on kinship bonds, family support, and domestic reliability.
- Factor 2 (Trust in Friends): Items loaded cleanly on peer loyalty, emotional reciprocity, and personal friendship.
- Factor 3 (Trust in Strangers): Items characterized by expectations of benevolence and honesty from unknown public figures.
- Factor 4 (Trust in Organizations): Items clustered around institutional credibility, societal fairness, and systemic dependability.
Following oblique rotation (promax/oblimin), all 27 retained items exhibited primary factor loadings ≥ .40 on their designated target dimensions, with negligible cross-loadings (< .30), confirming clear factor purity.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
To cross-validate the empirical structure identified in the EFA, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the independent second sample (Sample 2, N = 1,018) using structural equation modeling. The hypothesized four-factor first-order oblique model was evaluated against competing structures (e.g., a unidimensional one-factor model and a two-factor model distinguishing only between interpersonal and institutional trust).
In line with standard cutoff criteria (Hu & Bentler, 1999), the four-factor model demonstrated an excellent fit to the observed data:
- Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): ≤ .05, indicating minimal approximation error in the population covariance matrix.
- Comparative Fit Index (CFI): ≥ .92, indicating substantial improvement over the baseline null model.
- Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): ≥ .91, corroborating non-normed fit adequacy.
- Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): ≤ .05, demonstrating small residuals between observed and predicted correlations.
All standardized factor loadings within the confirmatory framework were statistically significant (p < .001), ranging solidly between .50 and .85. Alternative competing structural models demonstrated poorer fit indices, confirming that the four-factor model best captures adolescent trust architecture.
10. Instrument / Measurement Tool
The operational specifications of the Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents are summarized below:
- Test Type: Psychometric self-report questionnaire; multidimensional psychological rating scale.
- Target Population: Adolescents, secondary school students, and middle/high school youth.
- Age Range: 12 to 18 years old.
- Administration Format: Standardized paper-and-pencil or secure online web/mobile administration.
- Administration Duration: Approximately 8 to 15 minutes.
- Total Number of Items: 27 items.
- Subscale Architecture:
- Trust in Relatives: Evaluates reliance and confidence in immediate and extended family members.
- Trust in Friends: Assesses interpersonal loyalty, emotional dependability, and confiding in peer relationships.
- Trust in Strangers: Measures generalized social trust extended to unfamiliar citizens in daily life.
- Trust in Organizations: Quantifies faith in the fairness, integrity, and operational dependability of societal institutions and public bodies.
- Response Scale: 27 items, Likert scale format (standard multi-point agreement rating reflecting degrees of agreement or subjective certainty).
- Scoring Procedures: Subscale scores are derived by calculating the mean or sum of all items assigned to each respective domain. An overall Social Trust Index can be computed by summing or averaging all 27 items (after reverse-coding any negatively phrased items, if applicable). Higher numerical scores represent elevated levels of perceived trustworthiness and positive expectations toward that social domain.
11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year
Year of Formal Publication: 2025.
Copyright and Ownership: The intellectual property and formal copyright of the Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents reside with the original scale developers (Youling Bai, Luoxuan Li, Yuhan Yang, and Yanling Liu) and the publishing journal (Behavioral Sciences, MDPI).
Academic and Clinical Use Permissions: The STS-CA was developed as an open academic metric intended for non-commercial scholarly research, educational program evaluation, and psychological diagnostics. Although the conceptual structure, validation data, and psychometric indices are published openly in the peer-reviewed literature, the complete, verbatim item inventory is proprietary and held by the primary investigators.
Access and Licensing Requests: Researchers and practitioners seeking to obtain the complete instrument, administration manuals, or authorization for translation/adaptation should direct formal requests to the corresponding research team:
- Corresponding Author: Youling Bai ([email protected])
- Collaborating Author: Luoxuan Li ([email protected])
- Southwest University, Chongqing, China
12. References
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13. Items of the Scale
The official items of the Social Trust Scale for Chinese Adolescents are proprietary and copyrighted by the original research team. They are not reproduced in the open public domain. In accordance with ethical publishing protocols and psychometric intellectual property standards, researchers wishing to view, administer, or adapt the complete questionnaire must obtain formal approval from the primary author (Youling Bai, Southwest University, Chongqing, China; email: [email protected]).
Operational Architecture and Response Format
The instrument comprises a total of 27 items, Likert scale format, structured across four validated subscales:
- Subscale 1: Trust in Relatives
- Scope: Gauges perceived dependability, emotional loyalty, and financial/social security within immediate and extended family circles.
- Construct Coverage: Focuses on familial honesty, adherence to domestic commitments, and absence of opportunistic motives within the home environment.
- Subscale 2: Trust in Friends
- Scope: Assesses reciprocal confidence, peer confidentiality, and relational security in adolescent friendships.
- Construct Coverage: Focuses on peer loyalty, sharing of personal confidants, absence of malicious betrayal, and mutual support during scholastic and social challenges.
- Subscale 3: Trust in Strangers
- Scope: Evaluates generalized positive expectations directed toward unfamiliar citizens within community, online, and broader societal spaces.
- Construct Coverage: Addresses assumptions of baseline human benevolence, willingness to seek help from unknown individuals, and avoidance of pervasive cynicism.
- Subscale 4: Trust in Organizations
- Scope: Captures faith in the impartiality, operational fairness, and protective reliability of formal societal institutions and organizational bodies.
- Construct Coverage: Measures institutional integrity, fairness of social and educational authorities, and institutional dependability during moments of need.
Response Scale: Respondents evaluate each statement using a multi-point Likert scale, typically ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement. Scores are calculated both as composite dimension totals and as a cumulative social trust index, providing a standardized overview of adolescent relational and civic development.