Children's trust: Theory, assessment, development, and research directions

Abstract

Trust is a significant variable in children's personality, social, and intellectual development. Although trust research has primarily explored adult behavior, there is a growing body of research on children, with a particular emphasis on trust development within friendship relationships. This paper reviews the extant literature on children's trust. After summarizing historical theoretical perspectives, noting particularly Rotter's influence on the field, we offer a theoretical model of trust that synthesizes previous models. We describe various methods for assessing trust and argue for a multimethod approach consistent with our synthetic model. We review three research areas: antecedents to trust, the developmental course of trust in friendships, and correlates of trust. Implications for future research are indicated, and the absence of studies of practical applications is noted. Several programmatic applications for enhancing children's trust are presented.