Meaning: Multi-item formative index measuring to what extent trust in others is general, assigning increasing weights to trust's generality from close to unspecified to remote others [(IngTru + 2 * UnsTru + 3 * OutTru) / 6 calculated at the individual level and then aggregated to the country level using the population average].
Source: Index invented and documented in Welzel, Freedom Rising (2013: 199-200), www.cambridge.org/welzel (Online Appendix, p. 62-63), based on data from the World Values Surveys, countries from rounds five and six.
Scaling: Multi-point index ranging from 0 when there is no generalized trust to 1.0 for the opposite case, with proper fractions for intermediate positions. Country-level scores are the average of each national sample.
Remarks: Individual-level scores are normally distributed around the mean in each national sample.
Type of variable: Continuous
Last updated by source: 2014-03-01