The Concept of Trust in Newly-formed versus Long-term Romantic Relationships
Abstract
Trust, a fundamental principle upon which social relationships are predicated, is axiomatically thought to develop for someone by virtue of time spent and past experiences with that someone. However, existing data suggest that trust for a romantic partner already manifests at unvaryingly high quantities from the earliest stages of the relationship onward. Via measurement modelling, we investigated the extent to which the construction of trust – harkening to the intra-psychic entity itself, rather than the measured quantity – varies and addresses different psychological meaning at different stages of romantic relationships. Across two studies (Study 1, N = 464; Study 2, N = 847), we reclaimed a measurement model germane to Rempel et al.’s (1985) seminal framework of trust and found that the measurement model varied across individuals in newly-formed relationships and individuals in long-term relationships. Our findings garnered insight into the nature of trust and shed new light on potential divergences in the construction of trust across romantic relationship development.