Trust in close relationships revisited

Trust is widely regarded as a fundamental psychological concept in the study of relationships yet-rather than being investigated as a primary, material focus-is often relegated to serving as a proxy for and/or a means to facilitate the exploration of aspects of relationship quality and functioning. We conducted two measurement-focused studies to garner deeper insight into the nature of trust in romantic relationships and explore an account of trust that reframes its development as a process of construction, rather than addition. In Study 1 (N = 494), we explored the nature and structure of the construct of trust as put forward by Rempel et al. (1985). In Study 2 (N = 847), we then confirmed our findings from Study 1 and, using measurement invariance techniques and a refined version of Rempel et al.'s (1985) assessment, investigated the extent to which the trust of individuals involved in newly-formed relationships (n _Newly-formed = 387) versus individuals involved in long term relationships (n _Long-term = 460) reflect different conceptualizations of the construct. Across both studies, we (a) identified a compilation of items reflecting key factors of trust-Predictability (3 items), Dependability (4 items), and Faith (10 items)-resembling Rempel et al.'s (1985) framework; and (b) found broad sameness in the construct of trust across newly-formed and long-term relationships but also some granular differences that potentially suggest how the construct may change across stages of relationship development.