ABSTRACT
Individualized trust is “a process of holding certain relevant, favorable perceptions of another person which engender certain types of dependent behaviors in a risky situation where the expected outcomes that are dependent upon that other person(s) are not known with certainty”. Conceptually, given consistently positive interactions, trust should increase over time. C. A. Van Lear and N. Trujillo found just that. Over a 4-week period, trust increased and uncertainty decreased as a function of time. W. B. Snavely found that trust was related to other person perception measures and differed across styles and contexts of communication. The Individualized Trust Scale (ITS) differs from the Interpersonal Trust Scale in that the ITS focuses on a specific person rather than trust in other people in general. The ITS has a strong conceptual base and evidence suggests that it is valid and reliable.
