Trust and Distrust as Artifacts of Language: A Latent Semantic Approach to Studying Their Linguistic Correlates

Trust and distrust are crucial aspects of human interaction that determine the nature of many organizational and business contexts. Because of socialization-borne familiarity that people feel about others, trust and distrust can influence people even when they do not know each other. Allowing that s...

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Main Authors: David Gefen, Jorge E. Fresneda, Kai R. Larsen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-03-01
Series:Frontiers in Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00561/full
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author David Gefen
Jorge E. Fresneda
Kai R. Larsen
author_facet David Gefen
Jorge E. Fresneda
Kai R. Larsen
author_sort David Gefen
collection DOAJ
description Trust and distrust are crucial aspects of human interaction that determine the nature of many organizational and business contexts. Because of socialization-borne familiarity that people feel about others, trust and distrust can influence people even when they do not know each other. Allowing that some aspects of the social knowledge that is acquired through socialization is also recorded in language through word associations, i.e., linguistic correlates, this study shows that known associations of trust and distrust can be extracted from an authoritative text. Moreover, the study shows that such an analysis can even allow a statistical differentiation between trust and distrust—something that survey research has found hard to do. Specifically, measurement items of trust and related constructs that were previously used in survey research along with items reflecting distrust were projected onto a semantic space created out of psychology textbooks. The resulting distance matrix of those items was analyzed by applying covariance-based structural equation modeling. The results confirmed known trust and distrust relationship patterns and allowed measurement of distrust as a distinct construct from trust. The potential of studying trust theory through text analysis is discussed.
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spelling doaj.art-a03bad09b8b24bcea3bcc48207c46e2e2022-12-21T23:07:11ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782020-03-011110.3389/fpsyg.2020.00561488398Trust and Distrust as Artifacts of Language: A Latent Semantic Approach to Studying Their Linguistic CorrelatesDavid Gefen0Jorge E. Fresneda1Kai R. Larsen2Decision Sciences and MIS Department, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, United StatesMarketing, Martin Tuchman School of Management, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, United StatesOrganizational Leadership and Information Analytics, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, United StatesTrust and distrust are crucial aspects of human interaction that determine the nature of many organizational and business contexts. Because of socialization-borne familiarity that people feel about others, trust and distrust can influence people even when they do not know each other. Allowing that some aspects of the social knowledge that is acquired through socialization is also recorded in language through word associations, i.e., linguistic correlates, this study shows that known associations of trust and distrust can be extracted from an authoritative text. Moreover, the study shows that such an analysis can even allow a statistical differentiation between trust and distrust—something that survey research has found hard to do. Specifically, measurement items of trust and related constructs that were previously used in survey research along with items reflecting distrust were projected onto a semantic space created out of psychology textbooks. The resulting distance matrix of those items was analyzed by applying covariance-based structural equation modeling. The results confirmed known trust and distrust relationship patterns and allowed measurement of distrust as a distinct construct from trust. The potential of studying trust theory through text analysis is discussed.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00561/fulltrustdistrustlatent semantic analysistext analysismachine learninglinguistic correlates
spellingShingle David Gefen
Jorge E. Fresneda
Kai R. Larsen
Trust and Distrust as Artifacts of Language: A Latent Semantic Approach to Studying Their Linguistic Correlates
Frontiers in Psychology
trust
distrust
latent semantic analysis
text analysis
machine learning
linguistic correlates
title Trust and Distrust as Artifacts of Language: A Latent Semantic Approach to Studying Their Linguistic Correlates
title_full Trust and Distrust as Artifacts of Language: A Latent Semantic Approach to Studying Their Linguistic Correlates
title_fullStr Trust and Distrust as Artifacts of Language: A Latent Semantic Approach to Studying Their Linguistic Correlates
title_full_unstemmed Trust and Distrust as Artifacts of Language: A Latent Semantic Approach to Studying Their Linguistic Correlates
title_short Trust and Distrust as Artifacts of Language: A Latent Semantic Approach to Studying Their Linguistic Correlates
title_sort trust and distrust as artifacts of language a latent semantic approach to studying their linguistic correlates
topic trust
distrust
latent semantic analysis
text analysis
machine learning
linguistic correlates
url https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00561/full
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AT kairlarsen trustanddistrustasartifactsoflanguagealatentsemanticapproachtostudyingtheirlinguisticcorrelates