A Cross-temporal Meta-analysis of Changes in Chinese College Students’ Interpersonal Trust

Abstract

With the dramatic social changes in recent China, changes of people’s trust may take place as well. The present study conducted a cross-temporal meta-analysis of 53 papers adopting Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS) to investigate Chinese college students’ trust. The 53 papers involved 24233 college students and the data collection time ranged from 1998 to 2009. Results showed that: (1) Chinese college students’ interpersonal trust was decreasing in the past 11 years, and compared to the year of 1998, it dropped 1.19 standard deviations in 2009; (2) Interpersonal trust declined significantly for both the male and the female, whereas, trust scores had no significant gender difference; (3) Interpersonal trust of students from rural area declined significantly, whereas trust of students from urban area held constant, moreover, no difference of trust scores was observed between rural and urban students.