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    Society for Political ethodology

    The Measurement and Meaning of Trust in GovernmentAuthor(s): Stanley FeldmanSource: Political Methodology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1983), pp. 341-354Published by: Oxford University Presson behalf of the Society for Political Methodology

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  • 8/10/2019 (1983) the Measurement and Meaning of Trust in Government

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    The

    Measurement

    and

    Meaning

    of

    Trust

    in

    Government

    Stanley

    Feldman

    Perhaps

    the

    most well documented

    trend In

    political

    attitudes

    over

    the

    past

    20

    years

    has

    been

    the

    sharp

    increase

    in

    political

    cynicism.

    Research

    in

    the

    1950s

    and

    early

    1960s

    found

    Americans

    loyal

    and

    highly

    trusting

    of

    political

    authorities

    (Almond and

    Verba,

    1963;

    Lane,

    1965). Since

    the

    mid-1960s,

    a

    large

    number of

    studies

    using

    a

    number of

    different

    indicators

    have

    shown

    substantial

    declines

    in

    political

    trust,

    confidence,

    and

    public

    evaluations

    of

    both

    political and nonpolitical Institutions and leaders (Miller,

    1974a;

    Hill

    and

    Luttbeg,

    1980;

    Ladd,

    1976-77;

    House and

    Mason,

    1975;

    Wright,

    1976).

    Despite

    the

    large body

    of

    evi

    dence

    on

    the

    decline

    of

    political

    trust,

    major

    questions

    still

    remain about

    the

    meaning,

    causes,

    and

    consequences

    of

    the

    observed

    trends.

    Although

    the

    significance

    of these

    trends

    in

    political

    attitudes remains

    unclear,

    a

    major

    issue

    that

    needs

    to be

    addressed is

    the

    meaning

    of

    responses

    to the

    items used

    to document

    these trends.

    A good example of the problems surrounding the meaning

    of such

    social and

    political

    indicators

    is

    the

    popular

    trust

    in-government

    scale that has

    been

    included in

    a

    long

    series

    of

    SRC/CPS

    National Election

    surveys.

    These

    items

    have

    become

    popular

    measures

    of

    political

    trust/cynicism

    and

    have

    been

    Included In

    other

    large-scale

    surveys,

    but

    consid

    erable

    conflict has

    developed

    over

    their

    precise

    meaning.

    The

    interpretation

    issue

    revolves around

    the

    problem

    of

    diffuse

    support

    (Easton,

    1975):

    general feelings

    of

    alle

    giance

    and

    support

    for

    the

    political regime.

    Miller

    (1974a,

    1974b)

    made the case most

    strongly

    for

    interpreting

    the

    AUTHOR'S NOTE:

    The

    data used

    in this

    analysis

    were

    collected

    by

    the

    Center for

    Political

    Studies

    and

    made available

    by

    the

    Interuniversity

    Consortium for Political

    and Social

    Research,

    neither

    of

    which bears

    any

    responsibility

    for

    the

    results

    or

    interpretations

    reported

    here.

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    342

    Political

    Methodology

    political

    trust

    items

    as

    measures

    of

    diffuse

    support,

    arguing

    that mistrust

    is in

    large

    part

    a

    consequence

    of

    fundamental

    social and political conflict and has potentially significant

    consequences

    for

    the

    political

    system.

    Miller,

    Goldenberg,

    and

    Erbring

    (1979:79)

    have

    more

    recently

    argued

    that

    cynicism

    reflects

    general

    dissatisfaction with

    government

    perfor

    mance

    and

    may

    be considered

    a

    'leading*

    Indicator of

    dif

    fuse

    support.

    An

    alternative

    interpretation

    is that

    the

    trust-in

    government

    items,

    because of their

    reference to the

    govern

    ment in

    Washington

    and

    the

    people

    in

    Washington,

    tend

    to

    reflect attitudes toward the incumbent authorities rather

    than

    toward the

    political

    system

    more

    generally.

    Citrin

    (1974)

    argued

    for

    the

    latter

    interpretation,

    in

    part

    because

    he

    found that

    expressions

    of

    cynicism

    were

    often

    accompanied

    by feelings

    of

    pride

    in

    the

    political

    system.

    Muller

    and

    Jukam's

    (1977)

    data

    from

    a

    German

    survey

    show

    a

    clear dis

    tinction

    between

    attitudes

    toward

    political

    incumbents

    and

    toward the

    political

    system.

    They

    argue

    that

    political

    trust

    is

    more

    related

    to incumbent affect than to

    system

    support.

    Most

    recently, Muller, Jukam,

    and

    Seligson

    (1982)

    have

    shown

    that

    the

    political

    trust

    measure

    does

    not

    relate

    to

    anti-system

    behavior

    in

    the

    way

    that

    a

    measure

    of

    diffuse

    political

    support

    should.

    The

    key

    issue in this debate

    is

    the

    seemingly

    ambiguous

    meaning

    of

    government

    in

    the

    trust

    items:

    do

    people

    interpret

    this to

    mean

    the

    specific

    leaders

    in

    power

    at

    the

    time

    or

    the

    more

    established

    governmental

    institutions

    from

    which

    long-term

    legitimacy

    derives

    (Hill,

    1981)?

    One

    data set

    may

    offer

    some

    answers

    to

    this

    question.

    In the 1978 National Election study, four new questions were

    included with

    the

    five

    trust-in-government questions.

    Using

    the

    same

    wording

    as

    the

    do-what-is-right

    and

    few

    big

    interests

    items

    of

    the

    trust-in-government

    scale,

    two items

    were

    changed

    to

    refer to President

    Carter

    and the

    Carter

    administration,

    while

    two others

    specify

    the

    U.S.

    Congress.

    (See

    the

    appendix

    for the

    wording

    of these

    questions.)

    The

    more

    specific

    referents

    of

    these

    questions

    make it

    possible

    to examine the

    relationship

    between

    the

    general

    trust items

    and trust in both the President and Congress, and thus to

    gain

    a

    better

    understanding

    of

    the

    meaning

    of trust

    in

    gov

    ernment.

    Two

    problems

    stand in

    the

    way

    of

    a

    simple

    Interpretation

    of

    the

    relationships

    among

    the

    three

    sets

    of

    trust

    items,

    however.

    First,

    as

    Abramson

    and Finifter

    (1981)

    recognized

    in their

    analysis

    of

    these

    data,

    the

    use

    of

    identical

    ques

    tion

    wording

    across

    the

    three

    referents introduces

    the

    possibility

    of

    contamination

    because of

    common

    methods

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    Stanley

    Feldman

    343

    variance.

    Thus,

    a

    correlation

    between, say,

    trust

    in

    govern

    ment

    and

    trust

    in

    Congress

    could reflect

    the

    covariance

    gen

    erated by people reacting to the common question wording.

    Abramson and

    Finifter's (1981)

    analysis

    of

    these

    items

    showed

    that

    common

    method

    variance

    is

    a

    potential

    problem,

    at least

    for the

    few-big-interests questions.

    Even with

    this

    source

    of

    bias

    recognized,

    however,

    Abramson and

    Finifter

    found

    substantial

    relationships

    between

    the

    original

    trust

    measure

    and

    the

    new

    measures

    of

    trust in Carter

    and

    Congress.

    Despite

    their

    awareness

    of

    the

    question

    wording

    problem

    and

    their

    careful

    attempts

    to

    deal with

    it,

    their

    methods

    (examining

    the

    effects

    of

    dropping

    items

    from

    scales

    while

    correcting

    for

    changes

    in scale

    reliability)

    fall

    short in

    two

    respects:

    they

    are

    able to detect

    only

    quite

    large

    methods effects

    and

    they

    cannot

    accurately

    estimate either

    the

    magnitude

    of

    those

    effects

    or

    the true

    correlations

    among

    the

    trust

    measures

    with methods effects

    removed.

    In

    addition,

    any

    analysis

    that

    attempts

    to

    estimate

    unbiased

    parameters

    among

    attitudinal constructs must take into

    account both

    systematic

    and

    random

    error

    components

    in

    the

    measured

    variables

    (Blalock,

    1968).

    The second problem that must be dealt with before these

    new

    trust items

    can

    be

    used

    to

    assess

    the

    meaning

    of

    the

    trust-in-government

    scale

    is

    the

    causal

    nature

    of

    the

    observed

    relationships.

    Plausible theoretical

    arguments

    can

    be

    used to

    defend

    three different

    interpretations

    of

    a

    correlation between

    the

    general

    trust

    scale and trust in

    Carter

    or

    Congress.

    First,

    as

    Miller

    (1979)

    argues,

    there

    may

    be

    a

    spillover

    effect

    in which

    general

    distrust of

    political

    authorities results

    in

    increasing

    distrust

    of

    the

    specific institutions of the government or the occupants of

    those

    institutions.

    Alternatively,

    the

    direction

    of

    causal

    influence

    could

    be

    reversed,

    with

    generalized

    distrust

    of

    political

    authorities

    being

    a

    consequence

    of

    distrust

    of

    the

    President

    and

    Congress:

    distrust of

    the

    major

    political

    institutions

    and

    incumbents

    builds

    up

    and

    leads

    to

    a

    more

    diffuse

    sense

    of

    distrust

    of

    politics

    and

    the

    political

    system.

    Another,

    less

    substantive,

    interpretation

    of this

    causal flow is

    that,

    when

    asked

    about trust

    in

    government

    or

    the

    people

    in

    Washington, people respond

    on

    the

    basis

    of

    the

    most

    salient

    features

    of

    the

    national

    government:

    the

    President

    and

    Congress.

    Finally,

    observed

    correlations

    among

    the

    several

    trust

    measures

    could

    simply

    be

    spurious.

    Feelings

    that

    the

    government

    has

    not

    solved

    important prob

    lems

    or

    is

    generally

    unresponsive

    to

    people's

    opinions

    may

    lead

    to

    distrust

    of

    various

    aspects

    of

    the

    government

    simul

    taneously.

    Thus,

    correlations

    among

    the three

    measures

    of

    political

    trust

    do

    not

    necessarily

    demonstrate

    direct

    causal

    relationships

    among

    them.

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    344

    Political

    Methodology

    In

    this

    paper,

    I

    estimate

    more

    precisely

    the

    relation

    ships

    between

    the

    general

    trust

    in

    government

    items and the

    new

    items

    measuring

    trust in

    President Carter

    and the

    Con

    gress.

    Only

    by

    dealing

    with the issues of

    systematic

    and

    random measurement

    error

    and

    the

    structure

    of causal

    effects

    can

    the

    new

    trust

    items

    provide

    useful information

    for

    understanding

    the

    meaning

    and

    significance

    of

    political

    trust.

    DATA AND METHODS

    This

    paper

    uses

    the

    same 1978

    CPS

    National Election

    Data employed

    by

    Abramson and Finifter (1981). As noted

    earlier,

    in

    addition

    to

    the

    standard five

    trust

    items,

    four

    new

    items

    were

    included.

    The

    new

    items

    duplicate

    the

    word

    ing

    of

    two

    of

    the

    standard

    items,

    changing

    the

    referents

    first

    to

    President Carter

    and

    the Carter

    administration

    and

    then to the

    Congress.

    Because

    the

    other

    three

    trust

    items

    were

    not

    repeated

    in

    the

    new

    form,

    they

    will

    not be

    included

    in this

    analysis:

    question wording

    effects

    cannot

    be

    estimated

    with

    a

    single

    item.

    The

    analysis

    will

    thus

    consider the relationships among six trust items represent

    ing

    three

    substantive

    constructs (trust in

    government,

    Carter,

    and

    Congress)

    and

    two methods effects

    (question

    wording).

    The

    hypothesized

    model

    underlying

    these six

    items

    is

    shown

    in

    Figure

    1.

    In

    this

    model,

    the measured

    variables

    are

    enclosed in

    rectangles

    and

    the

    unobserved

    constructs in

    circles.

    Variation in

    each

    item

    may

    result

    from

    three

    dis

    tinct

    influences:

    a

    substantive factor

    representing

    the

    specific

    dimension

    of

    political

    trust

    (government, Carter,

    and

    Congress),

    a

    question wording

    effect,

    or a

    random

    error

    term.

    The

    estimates

    of

    the

    correlations

    among

    the three

    trust factors

    are

    thus free of

    the

    effects of

    both

    system

    atic and random

    measurement

    error.

    In addition to

    the

    mea

    surement model shown in

    Figure

    1,

    six

    exogenous

    variables

    were

    included

    in

    the

    analysis

    as

    predictors

    of

    the

    three

    trust

    factors. This

    was

    done

    both to

    aid in

    the

    identifica

    tion

    of

    the

    model and to

    provide

    evidence

    of discriminant

    validity

    among

    the

    three

    estimated factors.

    The six

    vari

    ables are:

    respondents'

    ratings

    of the

    job

    performance

    of

    Carter and

    Congress, approval

    of

    the

    government's

    handling

    of

    the

    economy

    and

    the

    respondents'

    self-identIfied

    most

    important

    problem,

    an

    index

    of

    government responsiveness,

    and

    party

    identification.1

    The

    entire

    model,

    with

    the

    six

    trust

    indicators and

    six

    exogenous

    variables,

    was

    estimated

    using

    LISREL

    (Joreskog

    and

    Sorbom,

    1978),

    which

    provides

    fuI

    I-Information,

    maximum

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    346

    Political

    Methodology

    likelihood

    estimates for identified

    models with

    unobserved

    constructs.

    Two

    means

    are

    provided

    for

    assessing

    goodness

    of-fit:

    standard

    errors

    of

    the

    parameter

    estimates

    and

    the

    likelihood ratio

    value.

    The

    standard

    errors can

    be used to

    compute

    t-values and

    test each

    parameter

    for

    statistical

    significance.

    In

    large

    samples,

    the

    likelihood ratio value

    is

    distributed

    as

    a

    chi-square

    distribution

    and

    provides

    a

    goodness-of-fit

    test

    for

    the

    entire

    model.

    In

    contrast

    to

    most

    inferential

    statistics,

    a

    large chi-square

    value indi

    cates

    that

    the

    model

    does

    not

    fit

    the

    data.

    One

    drawback

    of

    this

    test is

    that the

    likelihood

    ratio

    value

    is

    a

    direct

    function

    of

    sample

    size,

    making

    it

    unlikely

    that

    any

    non

    trivial model will

    produce

    a small

    chi-square

    value with a

    data

    set

    from

    a

    large

    sample.

    In

    this

    case,

    a

    more

    useful

    strategy

    is

    to examine

    the

    chi-square

    to

    degrees

    of

    freedom

    ratio. As

    a

    rough

    guide,

    ratios

    of

    under

    five

    are

    consid

    ered

    evidence

    of

    good

    fit

    for

    a

    sample

    of

    the

    size used

    here.

    RESULTS

    Table 1 provides the LISREL estimate of the basic mea

    surement

    model

    and

    the

    effects

    of

    the

    six

    exogenous

    varia

    bles

    on

    the

    three trust constructs.

    All

    coefficients

    have

    been

    standardized.

    The

    chi-square/degrees

    of

    freedom

    ratio

    is

    3.58,

    a

    very

    good

    fit for

    a

    sample

    size

    of

    over

    2000.2

    The

    estimates

    show,

    first,

    that

    in

    all

    three

    cases

    the

    two

    items

    are

    equally

    good

    indicators of

    political

    trust.

    On

    the

    other

    hand,

    in

    all

    six

    cases

    question

    wording

    effects

    and

    random

    error

    account

    for

    more

    than

    half

    of

    the

    variance

    in

    the

    indicator.

    On

    the

    average,

    the

    underlying

    trust

    construct

    determines

    only

    42

    percent

    of

    the variance

    in

    these

    indicators.

    It

    is

    thus

    clear

    that

    any

    estimates

    of

    the

    relationships

    among

    the

    three trust

    measures

    will be

    badly

    biased

    unless both

    sources

    of

    error

    variance

    are

    con

    trol

    led for.

    As

    Abramson

    and Finifter

    concluded,

    the

    impact

    of

    question wording

    varies

    significantly

    across

    the

    items,

    allowing

    us

    to

    see

    more

    precisely

    how each of

    the

    six

    trust

    items is

    affected

    by

    response

    to

    question wording.

    The

    estimates show a substantial and consistent

    question

    word

    ing

    effect

    for

    the

    few-big-interests questions.

    These

    large

    effects

    are

    consistent

    with

    Abramson

    and

    Finifterfs

    finding

    of

    response

    set

    effects

    for

    these items.

    The three

    do-what-is-right

    items

    are

    not

    completely

    free of

    question

    wording

    effects,

    however. For two

    forms of this

    item,

    the

    government

    and

    Carter,

    the

    question

    wording

    effect

    is

    slight

    and thus results

    in

    little

    correlation

    between

    pairs

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    TABLE

    1

    PARAMETER ESTIMATES OF

    THE POLITICAL

    TRUST MODEL

    A:

    Estimates of

    the

    Measurement

    Model

    Trust Factors

    Indicator

    Government?

    Do

    what is

    right

    Government?

    Few

    big interests

    Carter?Do

    what is

    right

    Carter?Few

    big

    Interests

    Congress?Do

    what is

    right

    Congress^?Few

    big interests

    Govern

    ment

    .66

    Wording

    Factors

    Do what

    Few

    big

    Carter

    Congress

    is

    right

    Interests

    Error

    ,63

    .66

    .65

    .67

    .68

    .20

    .21

    .51

    .42

    .42

    ,52

    .53

    .41

    .52

    .40

    .30

    .26

    Note:

    All

    coefficients

    are

    significant

    at

    the

    .01 level.

    B:

    Impact

    of

    Exogenous

    Variables

    on

    Trust Factor

    _Exogenous

    Variables_

    Trust

    Factor

    Rating

    Rating

    of of

    Carter

    Congress

    Economy

    Government

    .09**

    .17** .16**

    Carter

    .48**

    -.01

    .06*

    Congress

    .06 .3.5** .12**

    *

    =

    significant

    at

    the

    .05

    level.

    **

    =

    significant

    at

    the .01

    level.

    chi-square

    =64.5

    degrees

    of

    freedom

    =

    18

    chisquare/df

    =

    3.58

    Most

    Handling

    Important

    Prob

    I m

    Government

    Party

    .15**

    .15**

    .13**

    Responsiveness

    I

    enti

    f

    icat

    ion

    .34**

    -.05

    .30**

    .06*

    .38**

    -.04

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    both

    trust

    in

    Carter

    and trust

    In

    Congress.

    The

    newly

    specified

    model

    was

    estimated

    with the

    LISREL

    program.

    The

    fit

    of this

    model

    is somewhat

    better

    than

    the

    first, reflect

    ing

    the

    elimination of

    nonsignificant

    causal

    paths

    between

    the

    exogenous

    variables and the

    three

    trust

    constructs

    (chi

    square/df

    =

    3.35).

    The

    estimates of

    the

    measurement

    compo

    nent

    of

    the

    model

    remained

    virtually

    unchanged.

    The

    esti

    mates

    for

    the

    three

    trust constructs

    are

    (all

    coefficients

    are

    significant

    at

    the

    .05

    level):

    TRUST

    IN

    GOVERNMENT

    =

    .53TRUST IN

    CONGRESS

    + .20TRUST IN CARTER + .11 GOVERNMENT

    HANDLING

    OF

    ECONOMY

    +

    .09RESP0NSIVENESS

    -.08PARTY

    IDENTIFICATION

    TRUST IN CARTER

    =

    .17TRUST IN GOVERNMENT

    +.46RATING

    OF

    CARTER

    +

    .15M0ST

    IMPORTANT

    PROBLEM

    +

    .24RESP0NSIVENESS

    +

    .09PARTY

    IDENTIFICATION

    TRUST IN CONGRESS

    =

    .18TRUST

    IN

    GOVERNMENT

    +

    .31

    RATING OF CONGRESS

    +

    .09G0VERNMENT

    HANDLING OF ECONOMY

    +

    .13M0ST IMPORTANT

    PROBLEM

    +

    .31

    RESPONSIVENESS

    Looking

    first

    at

    the

    determinants

    of

    trust

    in

    govern

    ment,

    we

    see

    that the

    dominant influence

    is

    trust

    in

    Congress.

    The

    standardized coefficient

    for this

    construct

    is

    more

    than

    two and

    a

    half

    times

    larger

    than

    the

    next

    largest

    coefficient,

    for

    trust

    in Carter. With trust

    in

    Congress

    and Carter

    held

    constant,

    the

    government's handling

    of the

    economy,

    govern

    ment

    responsiveness,

    and

    party

    identification have

    only

    marginal

    effects

    on

    trust

    in

    government.

    It

    seems

    clear,

    then,

    that

    when

    people

    are

    asked to

    express

    their level of

    trust in

    the

    federal

    government they

    are

    responding primarily

    on

    the

    basis of

    their

    trust in

    Congress.

    Trust in Carter

    and

    Congress,

    on

    the other

    hand,

    are

    only

    somewhat

    influenced

    by

    trust

    in

    government

    more

    gener

    ally.

    Although

    there is

    some

    tendency

    for

    distrust

    to

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    Political

    Methodology

    spill

    over

    from

    the

    government

    to

    the

    institutions

    of

    government,

    the

    effect

    is

    not

    nearly

    as

    pronounced

    as

    the

    effect of trust in Congress on trust in government. Beyond

    this,

    the

    determinants of

    trust in Carter and

    Congress

    are

    very

    similar to the

    previous

    analysis.

    Specifically,

    trust

    in

    Carter

    is

    more

    responsive

    to

    job performance

    ratings

    than is

    trust

    in

    Congress

    (.46

    vs.

    .31),

    while

    the

    reverse

    is

    true

    of the

    impact

    of

    government

    responsiveness

    (.31

    vs.

    .24).

    CONCLUSIONS

    Although

    this

    analysis

    cannot

    answer

    all the

    questions

    relevant

    to

    the

    meaning

    of

    trust

    in

    government,

    some

    impor

    tant conclusions

    can

    be drawn.

    First,

    the

    analysis

    has

    shown

    very

    clearly

    that

    at least two of

    the

    items

    (and

    pre

    sumably

    all)

    making

    up

    the

    popular

    trust-in-government

    scale

    are

    contaminated

    by

    both

    random and

    systematic

    (question

    wording)

    measurement

    error.

    Overall,

    more

    than half

    of

    the

    variance

    in the

    items reflects

    sources

    of

    error

    rather

    than

    the

    substantive

    underlying

    construct of

    political

    trust.

    Second,

    the effects of

    question wording

    are

    quite

    evident,

    especially

    for

    the

    few-big-interests

    questions.

    Thus,

    for

    this

    question,

    and

    to

    a

    somewhat

    lesser

    extent the

    do-what

    is-right

    items,

    people's

    responses

    reflect not

    only

    their

    feelings

    of trust but

    also

    their

    tendency

    to

    respond

    in

    consistent

    ways

    to

    certain

    types

    of

    questions.

    As Abramson

    and

    Finifter (1981)

    recognized,

    this

    is

    clearly

    a

    problem

    when the

    referents

    of

    the

    trust-in-government

    scale

    are

    changed.

    Some

    of

    the

    observed

    covariation

    will

    be

    a

    result

    of methods variance rather than substantive relationships.

    Third,

    although question

    wording

    inflates

    the

    correla

    tions

    between

    the

    trust

    constructs,

    random

    measurement

    sig

    nificantly

    depresses

    them. Estimated

    correlations

    among

    the

    three,

    controlling

    for both

    sources

    of

    error,

    are

    very

    large,

    especially

    between trust

    in

    government

    and

    trust

    in

    Congress.

    These

    correlations

    suggest

    that either members

    of

    the

    public

    do not

    distinguish

    clearly

    between

    the

    gov

    ernment,

    the

    incumbent

    President,

    and

    the

    Congress

    in

    their

    feelings of trust or cynicism, or that the sources of mis

    trust in

    all

    three

    are

    quite

    similar.

    Fourth,

    estimates

    from

    a

    nonrecursive

    model

    show that

    the

    dominant

    causal

    relationship

    underlying

    these

    correla

    tions is

    the

    effect

    of

    trust in

    Congress

    oni

    trust

    in

    govern

    ment.

    The

    other

    three

    causal

    relationships

    (trust

    in

    Carter

    on

    government,

    and

    trust in

    government

    on

    the other

    two),

    while

    statistically significant,

    are

    much

    less

    important

    than the

    first.

    Thus,

    when

    people report

    that

    they

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    (mis)trust

    the

    government,

    they

    are

    in

    large

    measure

    saying

    that

    they

    (mis)trust

    Congress.

    Finally,

    there is also

    some

    evidence that trust in the President is based more on the

    job

    performance

    of

    the

    incumbent,

    while

    trust

    in

    Congress

    is

    more

    institutionally

    based

    (as

    reflected

    in

    perceptions

    of

    responsiveness).

    What does all

    of

    this

    mean

    for

    the

    interpretation

    of

    the

    trust-in-government

    scale?

    Clearly,

    the

    key

    finding

    is

    the

    strong

    causal

    link

    between trust

    in

    Congress

    and

    trust

    in

    government.

    An

    initial

    question

    asks

    why

    this relation

    ship

    is

    so

    much

    stronger

    than

    that of

    trust

    in

    Carter

    on

    trust

    in

    government.

    One

    plausible

    answer

    is

    that both

    the

    government

    and

    Congress

    are

    understood

    by

    the

    public

    in

    institutional

    terms,

    while

    the

    reference

    to

    President

    Carter

    is in

    very

    personal

    terms.

    Thus,

    it

    is

    easier

    to

    separate

    evaluations

    of

    the

    President

    from

    the

    institutions

    of

    the

    government.

    This still

    leaves

    the

    problem

    of how

    to

    inter

    pret

    the

    impact

    of

    trust

    in

    Congress

    on

    trust

    in

    government.

    On

    the

    one

    hand,

    this

    may

    indicate

    the

    operation

    of

    a

    process

    by

    which

    people develop

    trust

    (or

    cynicism)

    in

    the

    government

    as a

    whole

    on

    the

    basis

    of

    their

    evaluations

    of the

    perfor

    mance of

    specific

    governmental

    institutions (Miller, 1979).

    However,

    an

    alternative

    explanation

    is

    that,

    when

    asked

    to

    express

    their trust

    in

    government,

    people

    respond

    on

    the

    basis

    of

    particularly

    salient

    information,

    in

    this

    case

    on

    the

    basis

    of

    their

    evaluation

    of

    Congress

    (Hill,

    1981).

    This

    linkage

    may

    be

    created

    in

    large

    part

    by people's

    eval

    uations of

    Congress

    as an

    institution.

    Evidence

    shows

    that

    people

    clearly

    distinguish

    between

    evaluations

    of Con

    gress

    and evaluations

    of

    their

    own

    representative.

    If

    this

    explanation is correct, it suggests that the trust-in

    government

    scale

    may

    not

    be

    measuring

    actual

    levels

    of

    support

    for

    the

    political regime,

    but

    may

    reflect

    evalua

    tions of

    specific

    governmental

    institutions.

    The

    data

    in

    this

    analysis

    cannot

    distinguish

    between

    these

    two

    explana

    tions;

    this should

    be

    a

    primary

    goal

    of

    future

    research.

    APPENDIX

    The following are the six political trust

    items

    used

    in

    the

    analysis

    reported

    here.

    Trust in

    government:

    How

    much

    of

    the time do

    you

    think

    you

    can

    trust

    the

    government

    in

    Washington

    to do what

    is

    right?just

    about

    always,

    most

    of

    the

    time,

    or

    only

    some

    of

    the time?

    Would

    you

    say

    the

    government

    is

    pretty

    much

    run

    by

    a

    few

    big

    interests

    looking

    out

    for

    themselves

    or

    that

    it is

    run

    for

    the

    benefit

    of

    a

    I

    I the

    people?

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    Political

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    Trust in Carter:

    How much

    of the

    time

    do

    you

    think

    you

    can

    trust

    President Carter to do what is right?just about always,

    most of

    the

    time,

    or

    only

    some

    of

    the

    time?

    Would

    you

    say

    that

    the

    Carter administration is

    pretty

    much

    run

    by

    a

    few

    big

    interests

    looking

    out for

    themselves

    or

    that

    it

    is

    run

    for the

    benefit

    of all

    the

    people?

    Trust in

    Congress:

    How

    much

    of

    the

    time do

    you

    think

    you

    can

    trust

    the

    U.S.

    Congress

    to do

    what

    is

    right?just

    about

    always,

    most

    of the time, or only some of the time?

    Would

    you

    say

    that

    the

    U.S.

    Congress

    is

    pretty

    much

    run

    by

    a

    few

    big

    interests

    looking

    out for

    themselves

    or

    that it is

    run

    for

    the

    benefit

    of

    all the

    people?

    NOTES

    1.

    Evaluations of

    the

    job

    performance

    of President

    Carter

    and

    the

    Congress

    were

    obtained

    from

    five-point

    scales,

    from

    very

    good

    to

    very

    poor.

    Approval

    of

    the

    government's

    handling

    of the

    economy

    was constructed from

    separate

    ques

    tions

    dealing

    with

    unemployment

    and inflation.

    Those items

    and

    one

    measuring

    approval

    of the

    government's

    handling

    of

    the

    respondents'

    most

    important problem

    had

    response

    alternatives

    of

    good

    job, only

    fair,

    and

    poor

    job.

    The

    government

    responsiveness

    scale

    was

    constructed

    from

    three

    items

    asking

    whether

    the

    government

    pays

    attention

    to

    what

    people

    think;

    whether

    parties

    make

    the

    government

    listen;

    and whether elections make

    the

    government

    listen.

    High scores indicate high trust, approval of government

    performance,

    government

    responsiveness,

    and Democratic

    party

    identification.

    2. To

    minimize

    the

    problem

    of

    shrinking sample

    size,

    pairwise

    deletion of

    missing

    values

    was

    employed

    in

    the

    calculation

    of the

    correlation

    matrix.

    There

    were

    only

    minor differences

    between this matrix and

    one

    based

    on

    listwise

    deletion of

    missing

    values.

    3.

    It

    is

    possible

    that the

    two

    question wording

    fac

    tors

    also

    tap

    a more

    general

    level

    of

    political

    trust in

    addition to methods

    variance.

    Two

    pieces

    of

    evidence

    sug

    gest

    that

    this is

    unlikely.

    First,

    there

    is

    virtually

    no

    correlation

    between

    the

    two factors.

    Second,

    there

    is

    no

    indication

    that the

    exogenous

    variables

    have

    any

    effect

    on

    the

    do-what-is-right

    factor,

    while

    they

    may

    have

    a

    slight

    impact

    on

    the

    few-big-interests

    factor.

    This line

    of

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    analysis

    cannot

    be

    pursued

    too

    far,

    however,

    because of

    identification

    problems.

    4. To

    Identify

    the

    model,

    certain

    exogenous

    variables

    were

    excluded

    from

    each

    equation.

    These

    deletions reflect

    both

    substantive

    considerations

    (i.e.,

    no

    direct

    effect

    of

    ratings

    of

    Carter

    on

    trust

    in

    Congress,

    and

    no

    direct

    con

    nection

    between trust

    in

    Congress

    and

    trust in

    Carter) and

    inspection

    of

    the

    estimates

    from

    the

    initial model.

    Finally,

    all

    nonsignificant

    terms

    were

    dropped

    from

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    specifications

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    the

    estimates of the

    relationships

    among

    the

    trust factors

    proved

    to be

    very

    robust.

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