Trust and Credibility: Measured by Multidimensional Scaling. Lars-Erik Warg, Associate Professor, ManˇTechnologyˇEnvironment Research Group, University of Örebro, Fakultetsgatan 1, S-701 82 Örebro, Sweden, telephone: +46 (0)19 30 30 22, fax: +46 (0)19 30 34 63, e-mail lars-erik.warg@sam.hoe.se; and Lennart Bodin, Professor, Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Örebro Medical Centre Hospital
In focus of much of today's research interest in risk communication, is the fact that the communities do not trust policy and decision makers such as politicians, government or industry people. This is especially serious in the years to come when we are expecting risk issues concerning for example the nuclear industry, global warming and hazardous waste, to be even higher on the political and social agenda all over the world. Despite the research efforts devoted to trust, society needs an indepth understanding of trust for conducting successful communication regarding environmental hazards.
The present abstract is about an experimental study in psychology where focus has been on the possibility to use the multidimensional scaling technique to explore the characteristics people consider to be of importance when they say that certain persons are credible.
In the study, a total of 61 students at the University of Örebro, Sweden, were required to make comparisions of the similarity between 12 well-known Swedish persons from politics, science, media, industry, "TV-world" and litteratur (two persons at a time), regarding their credibility when making statements about risks in society. In addition, the subjects were rating the importance of 19 factors for the credibility of a source. These 61 persons comprised three groups of students: Pedagogics, business economists, and chemists. There were 61% women and 39% men and the mean age was 23 years.
The results will be analyzed using multidimensional scaling technique. Differences between the three groups will be analyzed and presented as well as those between men and women. In addition, the 19 factors will be discussed and considered when trying to label the dimensions accounted for by the multidimensional scaling technique.
The result from this study will contribute to our understanding of important factors behind human judgments concerning trust and credibility. It will also point to a technique for analyzing data and a means for making theoretical advancements.
Go to . . .
1998 SRA-Europe Table of Contents
1998 SRA-Europe Author Index
Main Abstracts Menu Page
RiskWorld Home Page