Wheeler Alex R, Bayliss Donna M, Ohan Jeneva
School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Youth Mental Health, Telethon Kids Institute, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
PLoS One. 2025 May 30;20(5):e0322790. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0322790. eCollection 2025.
There are conflicting suggestions concerning the developmental trend of trust beliefs during middle childhood. Across three studies, the current research developed a brief measure of child general trust beliefs, as well as child measures of trust in peers and online, and examined age-related differences in these beliefs. Study 1 explored the appropriateness of downward extending the General Trust Scale. Studies 2 and 3 developed the child version of this scale and adapted the target of trust to construct two additional scales measuring trust beliefs in peers and online. These studies also provide evidence of the psychometric quality of the scales, and that trust beliefs are positively associated with friendship quality and psychosocial well-being outcomes in children. In addition, Study 3 demonstrated small age-related decreases in general and peer trust. This finding suggests children may become more discerning during middle childhood. Implications of these age-related differences and the use of these novel scales is discussed.
关于童年中期信任信念的发展趋势，存在相互矛盾的观点。在三项研究中，当前的研究开发了一种简短的儿童一般信任信念测量方法，以及儿童对同伴和网络信任的测量方法，并研究了这些信念中与年龄相关的差异。研究1探讨了向下扩展《一般信任量表》的适用性。研究2和研究3开发了该量表的儿童版本，并调整了信任对象以构建另外两个测量同伴信任信念和网络信任信念的量表。这些研究还提供了量表心理测量质量的证据，以及信任信念与儿童友谊质量和心理社会幸福感呈正相关的证据。此外，研究3表明，一般信任和同伴信任随年龄增长略有下降。这一发现表明，儿童在童年中期可能会变得更加有辨别力。本文讨论了这些与年龄相关的差异以及这些新量表的应用所带来的影响。
