Can We Trust the Measurement of Trust?
(2012) NEKH01 20121Department of Economics
- Abstract
- This study investigates the concept of ‘trust’ through exploring the relationship between answers to a standard survey questions and behaviour observed in an economical experiment. The survey question has been used in a wide range of reports and studies related to economic development. Therefore, ensuring that the survey question has high validity and that it accurately captures the level of trust in the population is of utmost importance. Students at the University of Dar es-Salaam were asked to participate in a trust game and answer survey questions relating to trust. By comparing their behaviour in the trust game with their survey answers, the predictive power of the survey questions were investigated. Except from the standard survey... (More)
- This study investigates the concept of ‘trust’ through exploring the relationship between answers to a standard survey questions and behaviour observed in an economical experiment. The survey question has been used in a wide range of reports and studies related to economic development. Therefore, ensuring that the survey question has high validity and that it accurately captures the level of trust in the population is of utmost importance. Students at the University of Dar es-Salaam were asked to participate in a trust game and answer survey questions relating to trust. By comparing their behaviour in the trust game with their survey answers, the predictive power of the survey questions were investigated. Except from the standard survey question, an additional set of questions was included in the survey to investigate if these questions could better predict the behaviour in the experiment. It was found that the standard survey question could not predict behaviour in the trust game. Based on the results from the analysis we question the use of the standard survey question for measuring trust and propose the use of organisational membership as an indicator of trust. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/3054958
- author
- Jarl, Tove LU and Eldblom, Erik LU
- supervisor
-
- Andreas Bergh LU
- Therese Nilsson LU
- organization
- alternative title
- Investigating the Validity of the Standard Trust Question
- course
- NEKH01 20121
- year
- 2012
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- trust game, social capital, economical experiment, World Value Survey, Tanzania
- language
- English
- id
- 3054958
- date added to LUP
- 2012-09-26 10:56:07
- date last changed
- 2012-09-27 08:26:03
@misc{3054958,
abstract = {{This study investigates the concept of ‘trust’ through exploring the relationship between answers to a standard survey questions and behaviour observed in an economical experiment. The survey question has been used in a wide range of reports and studies related to economic development. Therefore, ensuring that the survey question has high validity and that it accurately captures the level of trust in the population is of utmost importance. Students at the University of Dar es-Salaam were asked to participate in a trust game and answer survey questions relating to trust. By comparing their behaviour in the trust game with their survey answers, the predictive power of the survey questions were investigated. Except from the standard survey question, an additional set of questions was included in the survey to investigate if these questions could better predict the behaviour in the experiment. It was found that the standard survey question could not predict behaviour in the trust game. Based on the results from the analysis we question the use of the standard survey question for measuring trust and propose the use of organisational membership as an indicator of trust.}},
author = {{Jarl, Tove and Eldblom, Erik}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Can We Trust the Measurement of Trust?}},
year = {{2012}},
}