Evaluating Measurement Invariance for Social and Political Trust in Western Europe over Four Measurement Time Points (2002-2008)

• Authors: Lluis Coromina , Eldad Davidov
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

It is a well-documented fact that social trust, i.e., the extent to which people trust others, and political trust, i.e., trust in political institutions, are key factors in social capital theory. However, to compare these concepts in cross-national or longitudinal frameworks, it is important to first establish whether the measurements of these concepts are compatible across countries or over time. This paper tests the measurement and cross-national and longitudinal invariance properties of social and political trust. We use multiple-group confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA) to evaluate the different levels of invariance (configural, metric and scalar) using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) measured at four different time points (2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008) in seven Western European countries. In a second step, the country mean rankings of social and political trust are computed based on the latent scores and compared with those based on traditional sum score measurements. This comparison illustrates the potential inaccuracy of sum scores for country mean comparisons when measurement invariance is not supported by the data.

Keywords

EN

political trust; social trust; cross-national comparison; multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA); measurement invariance; European Social Survey (ESS)

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: ASK. Research and Methods
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 22
• Pages: 37-54

Contributors

author

Lluis Coromina

• University of Girona. Department of Economics. Faculty of Economics and Business. Campus Montilivi, 17071 Girona, Spain

author

Eldad Davidov

• Universität Zürich Soziologisches Institut Andreasstrasse 15. CH-8050 Zürich (Switzerland)

References

• Allum, Nick, Roger Patulny, Sanna Read and Patrick Sturgis. 2010. “Re-evaluating the links between social trust, institutional trust and civic association in Europe.“ Pp. 199-215 in Spatial and Social Disparities. Understanding Population Trends and Processes, vol. 2, edited by J. Stilwell, P. Norman, C. Thomas and P. Surridge. London: Springer.
• Allum, Nick, Sanna Read and Patrick Sturgis. 2011. “Evaluating change in social and political trust in Europe using multiple group confirmatory factor analysis with structured means.” Pp. 35-53 in Cross-Cultural Analysis. Methods and Applications, edited by E. Davidov, J. Billiet and P. Schmidt. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Ariely, Gal and Eldad Davidov. 2011. “Assessment of measurement equivalence with cross-national and longitudinal surveys in political science.” European Political Science advance online publication 15 April 2011, doi: 10.1057/eps. 2011.11.
• Bollen, Kenneth A. 1989. Structural Equations with Latent Variables. New York : Wiley.
• Brown, Timothy A. 2006. Confirmatory Factor Analysis for Applied Research. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
• Byrne, Barbara M. 2012. Structural Equation Modeling with Mplus: Basic Concepts, Applications, and Programming. New York: Routledge.
• Byrne, Barbara M., Richard J. Shavelson and Bengt. O. Muthén. 1989. “Testing for the equivalence of factor covariance and mean structures: The issue of partial measurement invariance.” Psychological Bulletin 105: 456-466.
• Chen, Fang Fang. 2007. “Sensitivity of goodness of fit indices to lack of measurement invariance.” Structural Equation Modeling 14: 464-504.
• Davidov, Eldad, Peter Schmidt and Jaak Billiet. 2011. Cross-cultural Analysis: Methods and Applications. New York, NY: Routledge.
• De Beuckelaer, Alain and G. Swinnen. 2011. “Biased latent variable mean comparisons due to measurement noninvariance: A simulation study.” Pp. 117-147 in Cross-Cultural Analysis. Methods and Applications, edited by E. Davidov, J. Billiet and P. Schmidt. New York, NY: R outledge
• Delhey, Jan and Kenneth Newton. 2005. “Predicting cross-national levels of social trust: global pattern or Nordic exceptionalism?” European Sociological Review 21: 311-327.
• Denters, B., O. Gabriel and Mariano Torcal. 2007. “Political confidence in representative democracies. Sociocultural vs. political explanations.” Pp. 66-87 in Citizenship and involvement in European democracies: A comparative analysis, edited by J. W. van Deth , J. R. Montero and A. Westholm. London: Routledge.
• Easton, David. 1975. “A re-assessment of the concept of political support.” British journal of political science 5:435-457.
• Freitag, Markus and Paul C. Bauer. 2013. “Testing for measurement equivalence in surveys. dimensions of social trust across cultural contexts.” Public Opinion Quarterly 7 7:24-44.
• Freitag, Markus and Marc Bühlmann. 2009. “Crafting trust. The role of political institutions in a comparative perspective.” Comparative Political Studies 42:1537-1566.
• Fukuyama, Francis. 1995. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: The Free Press.
• Glaeser, Edward L., David I. Laibson, José A. Scheinkman and Christine L. Soutter. 2000. “Measuring trust.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 115: 811-846.
• Hardin, Russell. 1992. “The street-level epistemology of trust.” Analyse & Kritik 14:152-176.
• Hardin, Russell. 1999. “Do we want to trust in government?” Pp. 22-41 in Democracy and Trust, edited by M. E. Warren. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hu, Li-tze and Peter M. Bentler. 1999. “Cutoff criteria for fit indices in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives.” Structural Equation Modeling 6:1-55.
• Inglehart, Ronald. 1999. “Trust, well-being and democracy.” Pp. 88-120 in Democracy and Trust, edited by M. E. Warren. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Kaplan, David. 2009. Structural Equation Modeling: Foundations and Extensions. Los Angeles [etc. ]: SAGE. Levi, Margaret. 1998. “A State of Trust.” Pp. 77-101 in Trust and Governance, edited by V. Braithwaite and M. Levi. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Levi, Margaret and Laura Stoker. 2000. “Political trust and trustworthiness.” Annual Review of Political Science 3: 475-507.
• MacCallum, Robert C., Michael W. Browne and Hazuki M. Sugawara. 1996. “Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling.” Psychological Methods 1: 130-149.
• Meredith, William. 1993. “Measurement invariance, factor analysis and factorial invariance.” Psychometrika 58: 525-543.
• Meulemann, Bart and Jaak Billiet. 2012. “Measuring attitudes toward immigration in Europe: The cross-cultural validity of the ESS immigration scales.” ASK: Research&Methods 21:5-29.
• Muthén, Linda K. and Bengt. O. Muthén. 1998-2010. “Mplus User’s Guide. Sixth Edition.” Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
• Newton, Kenneth. 2001. “Trust, social capital, civil society, and democracy.” International Political Science Review 22: 201-214.
• Newton, Kenneth. 2007. “Social and political trust.” Pp. 342-361 in The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior, edited by R. J. Dalton and H.-D. Klingemann. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Putnam, Robert D. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Putnam, Robert D. 1995. “Tuning in, tuning out: The strange disappearance of social capital in America.” Politics and Political Science: 664–683.
• Reeskens, Tim and Marc Hooghe. 2008. “Cross-cultural measurement equivalence of generalized trust. Evidence from the European Social Survey (2002 and 2004).” Social Indicators Research 85: 515-532.
• Rosenberg, Morris. 1956. “Misanthropy and political ideology.” American Sociological Review 21: 690-695.
• Rothstein, Bo and Dietlind Stolle. 2002. “How political institutions create and destroy social capital: An institutional theory of generalized trust.” in 98th Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Boston.
• Saris, Willem E. and Irmtraud N. Gallhofer. 2007. Design, Evaluation, and Analysis of Questionnaires for Survey Research. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Inter science.
• Saris, Willem E., Albert Satorra and William van der Veld. 2009. “Testing structural equation models or detection of misspecifications?” Structural Equation Modeling 16:561-582.
• Schafer, Joseph L. and John W. Graham. 2002. “Missing data: Our view of the state of the art.” Psychological Methods 7: 147-177.
• Steenkamp, Jan-Benedict E. M. and Hans Baumgartner. 1998. “Assessing measurement invariance in cross-national consumer research.” Journal of Consumer Research 2 5:78-90.
• Stolle, Dietlind. 2003. “The sources of social capital.” Pp. 19-43 in Generating Social Capital: Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective, edited by D. Stolle and M. Hooghe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Sztompka, Piotr. 1999. Trust. A sociological theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tao, Ran, Dali L. Yang, Ming Li and Xi Lu. 2013. “How does political trust affect social trust? An analysis of survey data from rural China using an instrumental variables approach.” International Political Science Review. DOI: 10.1177/0192512113492599
• Torcal, Mariano and José Ramón Montero. 1999. “Facets of social capital in new democracies. The formation and consequences of social capital in Spain.” Pp. 154-177 in Social Capital and European Democracy, edited by J. W. van Deth , M. Maraffi, K. Newton and P. Whiteley. London: Routledge.
• Torney-Purta, Judith, Carolyn Henry Barber and Wendy Klandl Richardson. 2004. “Trust in government-related institutions among adolescents in six countries.” Acta Politica 39: 3 80-406.
• Uslaner, Eric M. and Mitchell Brown. 2005. “Inequality, trust, and civic engagement.” American Politics Research 33: 868-894.
• van der Meer, Tom, Jan W. van Deth and Peer Scheepers. 2009. “The politicized participant: Ideology and political action in 20 democracies.” Comparative Political Studies 42:14 26-1457.
• van der Veld, William and W. E. Saris. 2011. “Causes of generalized social trust.” Pp. 207-247 in Cross-Cultural Analysis. Methods and Applications, edited by E. Davidov, J. Billiet and P. Schmidt. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Zmerli, Sonja, Kenneth Newton and José Ramón Montero. 2007. “Trust in people, confidence in political institutions, and satisfaction with democracy.” Pp. 35-65 in Citizenship and Involvement in European Democracies. A Comparative Analysis, edited by J. W. van Deth, J. R. Montero and A. Westholm. London: Routledge.