Abstract
The validity of the World Values Survey (WVS) question used to measure trust is disputed over and this article is intended to present the results of an online survey, conducted in Brazil, which tested the meaning of the term trust in the WVS question. The surveyed population is entirely Brazilian and the majority has received some form of higher education. The results of the survey partially corroborate the validity of the WVS and partially deny it. Within the results of this survey there are predominantly two dominant perspectives represented within the surveyed population including: respondents who think in friends and relatives as part of most people have a higher probability of also saying to trust most people which means that different people may be answering slightly different questions. However, respondents who say that trust most people have higher levels of trust in people in general than in family if compared with respondents who say to not trust most people which is in accordance with the expectation that the question adequately measures generalized interpersonal trust.
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Notes
My argument is based on Elster’s discussion on collective action (Elster 1994).
The questionnaire and the collected data can be found at http://www.lepem.ufc.br/dados/conf2013/. The questionnaire is available in two formats: HTML without the question numbers, as the respondents have seen it, and PDF, with the question numbers.
The figure shows a violin plot which combines the features of box plots and density plots.
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to all respondents who have answered the questionnaire, and I am especially grateful to Camila Maria Cunha de Souza, FUNCAP undergraduate researcher fellow, who helped me to develop and administer the questionnaire, and to an anonymous reviewer whose many suggestions allowed me to significantly improve the article.
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de Aquino, J.A. The Meaning of Trust for Brazilians with Higher Education. Soc Indic Res 130, 325–349 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1178-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1178-0