Construct Validity of the Dyadic Trust Scale

Larzelere and Huston defined trust as “the extent that a person believes another person (or persons) to be benevolent and honest” (1980), p. 596) and developed a scale alleged to have excellent construct validity as well as high reliability. An independent analysis of their Dyadic Trust Scale for a sample of 79 married couples partially supports the construct validity but suggests that the scale is measuring benevolence more than honesty or trust.