Development and validation of a propensity to trust scale

Though trust researchers recognise the importance of a dispositional component to forming trusting relationships in the workplace, there has been comparatively little research on propensity to trust in the literature. We review the literature, discuss prior measures of propensity to trust, and integrate them to develop a propensity to trust scale. Results of four validation studies suggest that this propensity to trust scale demonstrates strong psychometric properties and is empirically related to other constructs within a theoretically derived nomological network of trust. The consequence is a concise, rigorously developed, and consistently reliable scale of propensity to trust. Scholarly and practical implications are discussed along with several avenues for future research.