SOCIALBEHAVIORANDPERSONALITY, 2010, 38(7), 929-940

Society for PersonalityResearch (Inc.)

DOI 10.2224/sbp.2010.38.7.929

Local political trust: The antecedents and

effects on earthquake victims choice FoR
allocation of resources
Qi Zhang and Erping Wang
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, Peoples Republic of China
We empirically investigated the antecedents and effects of local political trust. The survey data
(N = 424) were collected during postearthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction in Chinas
Sichuan province in 2008. Findings indicate that local political trust is shaped not only by
policy appraisal, but also by perceptions of informational and emotional support from the
local government. The attitudinal and behavioral consequences of trust suggest that the more
that people trust, the more positive will be their evaluation of the local government, and the
more resources they will be willing to allocate to communal facilities. Finally, the theoretical
and applied implications of this study are discussed.
Keywords: local political trust, policy appraisal, perceived support, postearthquake.

On May 12th, 2008, a strong earthquake struck the Sichuan province in

China. More than 46 million people suffered adverse effects from this disaster.
During the postearthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction process, the process
of contact between the victims and the government triggered a series of social

Qi Zhang, PhD candidate, Center for Social and Economic Behavior, Institute of Psychology, Chinese
Academy of Sciences and Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, Peoples
Republic of China; Erping Wang, Professor, Center for Social and Economic Behavior, Institute of
Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, Peoples Republic of China.
This study was funded by both the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 70731004) and
Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 08CX112011).
Appreciation is due to reviewers including: Li Feng, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Social and
Economic Behavior, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, Peoples
Republic of China, Email: lifeng@psych.ac.cn or lifengcas@gmail.com
Please address correspondence and reprint requests to: Professor Erping Wang, Center for Social and
Economic Behavior, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 4A Datun Road, Chao
Yang District, Beijing, Peoples Republic of China, 100101. Phone: +86-10-648-79237; Fax: +86-10648-72070; Email: wangep@psych.ac.cn

929

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Antecedents and effects of local political trust

problems which require analysis. Complaints and suspicion regarding the

inefficient management of disaster relief allocation were prevalent, despite the
hard work put in by the government. Local government officials were confronted
with a significant challenge in gaining the victims satisfaction with their work.
In recent years, low estimation by the public about the quality of the government
in a number of advanced industrial democracies has inspired a renewed focus on
political trust in the social sciences (Barber, 1983; Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 2001;
Miller, 1974; Putnam, Leonardi, & Nanetti, 1993). However, while numerous
attempts have been made to identify the determinants and consequences of
political trust in America, as well as in some European countries, relatively little
research on this topic has been undertaken in Asia (Hetherington & Nugent,
2001; Rudolph & Evans, 2005; Scholz & Lubell, 1998; Tyler & Degoey, 1995;
Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994). Our aim in the present study was to explore the
role of local political trust in the context of postearthquake rehabilitation and
reconstruction in China.
Policy Appraisal and Perceived Support from Government as
Antecedents
Based on the multifaceted character of trust, Kim (2005) synthesized definitions
used in previous studies and conceptualized trust as the willingness of a trustor
to be vulnerable based on the belief that the trustee will meet the expectations
of the trustor, even in situations where the trustor cannot monitor or control the
trustee. The prevailing difference between political trust and personal trust is
the consideration of institutional settings (Ruscio, 1999). As with individuals,
the question of whether or not one can reasonably trust institutions comes down
to the question of whether or not institutions can be trustworthy (Braithwaite
& Levi, 1998). What influences peoples relationships with their government?
According to the definition of political trust, people trust a government when
that government produces outcomes consistent with the peoples expectations.
Policy outcomes, as agreed by many scholars, are central to this relationship
(Miller, 1974; Nye, Zelikow, & King, 1997). People trust their government
more when they receive their desired policy outcomes (Owen & Dennis, 2001).
Although policy satisfaction is an important factor in the publics relationship
with the government, a great deal of variation exists, which requires explanation
(Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 2001). Ulbig (2002) names policy appraisal as a
concept including both the policy outcomes and the policy process, and claims
that the process by which these policies develop are also shown to be sources of
governmental trust. Results of previous research in the procedural justice area
support the finding that people are concerned not only with the outcomes of
decision-making processes, but also with the procedural aspects of that process
(Folger & Konovsky, 1989; Thibaut & Walker, 1975). People care about having a

Antecedents and effects of local political trust

931

voice in the decision-making process and prefer the decision-making body to be

neutral, trustworthy, and respectful of the participant (Wang & Wart, 2007). Thus,
in this study, policy appraisal, including both output and process, is considered to
be an antecedent of political trust.
When confronted with situations such as a natural disaster, for example, an
earthquake, one of the most important jobs for the government is to provide
sufficient support to victims. The term support originally comes from the
definition of social support. Social support refers to support that stems from ones
relationships with others, including emotional support, informational support,
diffuse support, and instrumental support (Cohen & Wills, 1985). Semmer,
Elfering, Jacobshagen, and Perrot (2008) further explain functional social
support as emotional (i.e., caring, esteem) or instrumental (i.e., informational,
tangible) support. The support one gets from others can also extend to ones
relationship with the organization that one works for (Boezeman & Ellemers,
2008; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). In the organizational behavior literature,
one of the most important antecedents of trust in organizations is identified as
perceived organizational support (Kramer, 1999; Tan & Tan, 2000). Although
society is, to some extent, considered to be the largest organization, research
concerning the relationship between perceived support from government and
political trust is relatively scarce, especially in the context of stressful events.
So, in this study, we consider perceived support from government to be another
antecedent to political trust.
Attitudinal and Behavioral Consequences of Political Trust
Trust constitutes an important source of social capital within social systems.
Fukuyama (1996) argued that one of the most important manifestations of trust
as a form of social capital is the spontaneous sociability that trust engenders.
Spontaneous sociability operationally refers to the myriad forms of cooperative,
altruistic, and cooperative behavior, in which members of a social community
engage, that enhance collective well-being and further the attainment of
collective goals (Kohut, 2000). Within organizational contexts, spontaneous
sociability assumes many forms. Members of an organization are expected to
contribute their time and attention to the achievement of collective goals, as well
as to exercising restraint when using limited organizational resources (Messick
et al., 1983; Tyler & Degoey, 1995). Furthermore, trust influences peoples
acceptance of dispute resolution procedures and outcomes. If individuals trust
the organization, they are more likely to accept unfavorable outcomes, and be
more willing to comply with organizational directives and regulations (Kramer,
1999; Tyler, 1994).
In the same way, trust in ones government also has corresponding attitudinal
and behavioral consequences. Hetheringtons (2005) theory of political trust is

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Antecedents and effects of local political trust

based on the prediction that trust will be most consequential among those who
are asked to sacrifice their own interests. Empirical research results support this
theory in that trust has been found to influence the publics attitude towards the
redistributive spending policy of the government (Rudolph & Evans, 2005).
Researchers have also found that political trust can increase the probability of
public cooperation and compliance with government decisions, such as charges
in taxes, by sharing common values and obligations with the government
(Putnam et al., 1993; Levi & Stoker, 2000). Trust in institutions has been found to
have a positive influence on perceived benefits, which may act as the motive base
for cooperative behavior (Siegrist, Cvetkovich, & Roth, 2000; Van Vugt, Snyder,
Tyler, & Biel, 2000, p. 11). Numerous studies have been carried out in which the
role of interpersonal or organizational trust in stimulating cooperative behavior
has been examined (Brann & Foddy, 1987; De Cremer, Snyder, & Dewitte, 2001;
Messick et al., 1983; Tyler & Degoey, 1995). There have been fewer studies in
which the relationship between political trust and choices about allocation of
communal funds has been investigated (Van Vugt et al., 2000).
Based on the literature reviewed about the antecedents and consequences of
political trust, we constructed a proposed model of local political trust.
We hypothesized that both policy appraisal and perceived support from local
government would influence the publics level of local political trust. Local
political trust not only affects public assessments of local government, but also
influence peoples preferences in terms of allocation of funds to disaster relief
resources as a result of their perception of the benefit to be gained from these
resources (see Figure 1).
Perceived support from
local government

Local government
satisfaction

Local political trust

Benefit perception

Policy appraisal

Figure 1. Proposed model of local political trust.

Allocation choice

Antecedents and effects of local political trust

933

Method
Sample and Data Collection
We drew our sample from Mianzhu, Shifang, and Dujiangyan counties,
which are all located in Sichuan and which were all strongly affected by the
earthquake. The participants were 424 victims, representing 424 households,
living in transitional houses (prefabricated huts). Of the participants, 46% were
male and 54% female. Their age distribution was as follows: 5.7% were aged 25
or under; 19.2% were aged between 26 and 35; 33.9% were aged between 36
and 45; 17.3% were aged between 46 and 55; 15.1% were aged between 56 and
65; and 8.8% were over 65 years of age. Most of the participants had completed
high school (62.3%), 16.4% of them had completed college, and the others
were below the junior high school education level (21.3%). All the participants
completed the questionnaire individually under the supervision of the researchers
and received a small gift as reward.
Measures
Policy appraisal The policy appraisal measure consisted of two items policy
output and policy process. Policy output was measured by a question asking the
participants to rate the policies carried out by the local government, using a 4point Likert scale (excellent, good, fair, poor). Policy process was measured by
a question asking how much attention the respondent felt the local government
paid to what the people thought, using a 4-point Likert scale (always, often,
sometimes, never). The Cronbachs alpha of the scale was 0.78.
Perceived support from the local government Two items were used to measure
the public perceived emotional and informational support, respectively, from
the local government. These items were adapted from the social support scale
developed by Van Veldhoven and Meijman (1994), using a 4-point Likert
scale (never, sometimes, often, always). Emotional support was measured
by asking: Do you gain encouragement and emotional comfort from the
local government? Informational support was measured by asking: Do you
get information from your local government about their policies concerning
postdisaster reconstruction? The Cronbachs alpha of the scale was 0.70.
Local political trust The four items operationally used as the components of
local political trust were revised from the traditional American National Election
Studies (ANES; 1964), the Trust in Government Scale, and Baldassares
(1985) Trust in Local Government Scale (for both scale see Robinson, Shaver, &
Wrightsman, 1999), the aim of which is to assess the local governments trustworthiness, competence, honesty, and wastefulness, using a 4-point scale: (i)
How much do you trust the local government to do what is right?; (ii) How

934

Antecedents and effects of local political trust

would you rate the performance of local government officials?; (iii) When
local government officials speak on television or newspapers, how much do
you trust what they say?; (iv) How much do you trust the local government
officials to use the donations and funds properly?. The Cronbachs alpha of the
scale was 0.91.
Satisfaction with local government Participants were asked to rate their
satisfaction with the local governments work on postdisaster reconstruction,
using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly dissatisfied) to 5 (strongly
satisfied).
Benefit perception We asked participants how much benefit they felt they could
gain from the public infrastructure of the post-disaster reconstruction, using a 5point scale ranging from 1 (very little) to 5 (a lot).
Resource allocation choice Participants were asked to allocate money from
donations and funds hypothetically according to their personal preference to
postdisaster relief and reconstruction in the three areas of public infrastructure,
work construction, and basic living conditions on a percentage basis. We
considered the percentage allocated to public infrastructure in this choice to
represent participants allocation to communal resources.
Results
Table 1 lists the means, standard deviations, and zero-order correlations for the
variables investigated in the current study.
As expected, local political trust was positively correlated with perceived
support, policy appraisal, local government satisfaction, benefit perception,
and resource allocation to public infrastructure. We included age, gender, and
political status as control variables to the model being tested. Age, gender, and
political status were positively correlated with the dependent variables.
Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations for Measured Variables
Variables
1 Perceived support
2 Policy appraisal
3 Local political trust
4 Satisfaction
5 Benefit perception
6 Resource allocation
7 Age
8 Gender
9 Political status

SD

1.91
2.64
2.43
2.88
2.85
30.79
45.10
-
-

0.81
0.73
0.74
1.20
0.93
13.72
13.57
-
-

Notes: N = 424. * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01

-
0.47**
-
0.60** 0.74**
-
0.52** 0.60** 0.67**
-
0.37** 0.51** 0.57** 0.37**
0.14** 0.17** 0.21** 0.16**
0.15** 0.18** 0.21** 0.16**
0.01
0.06
0.09** 0.02*
0.00
0.03
0.01
-0.01

0.22**
0.15**
0.09**
0.01**

0.04
0.06
0.01

Antecedents and effects of local political trust

935

The Integrated Model Test

Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and a partial latent model analysis were
conducted using the Amos 5.0 program. For each analysis, we examined several
commonly used indicators of fit: root mean square error of approximation
(RMSEA), normed fit index (NFI), and comparative fit index (CFI). In general,
RMSEA scores below 0.06 and NFI and CFI scores above 0.90 indicate a good
model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999).
To test for the measurement models, the perceived support scale, the policy
appraisal scale, and the local political trust scale were verified with CFA to ensure
their one-factor structure. As demonstrated in Figure 2, after the aggregation of
items, the measurement model showed a good fit (c2 = 38.33, df = 17; CFI = 0.99;
NFI = 0.98; RMSEA = 0.05). All factor loadings were significant in each of the
models, with all p values < 0.001. These results indicated that the measurement
models could serve as the baseline for the subsequent analysis.
Informational support

0.66***

Emotional support

0.81***

Perceived support
from local government
0.59***

Policy output

0.85***

Policy process

0.74***

Policy appraisal

0.71***

0.86***

Trustworthiness
0.86***
Competence

0.82***
0.88***

Local political trust

Honesty
0.84***
Wastefulness

Figure 2. Measurement model fit analysis.

*** p < 0.001

Figure 3 illustrates the latent model analysis results. When we used the control
variables as independent variables to test the model, the path coefficient of
control variables were all nonsignificant. The fitness indices indicated a good
model fit (c2 = 181.58, df = 68; CFI = 0.95; NFI = 0.93; RMSEA = 0.06). After
removing the control variables, the fitness indices indicated an improved model
fit (c2 = 81.06, df = 40; CFI = 0.98; NFI = 0.97; RMSEA = 0.05). The mediating

936

Antecedents and effects of local political trust

effects of local political trust and benefit perception were also assessed in the
model.
As hypothesized, both the perceived support from local government and policy
appraisal had significant associations with local political trust. The squared
multiple correlation of local political trust was 0.83, which meant that the joint
effects of perceived support from local government and policy appraisal could
explain 83% of the variance of local political trust. Thus, the local political trust
was effectively predicted by both perceived support from local government and
policy appraisal. For the attitudinal and behavioral consequences, local political
trust was significantly associated with local government satisfaction, and, in
addition, significantly influenced resource allocation to a communal facility
through the mediation of benefit perception. After inserting benefit perception,
the relationship between local political trust and resource allocation changed
from 0.22 (p < 0.001) to 0.14 (p < 0.05), which indicates the partial mediation of
benefit perception. Local political trust and benefit perception could explain 6%
of the resource allocation to a communal facility.
0.51

Perceived support
from local government

Local government
satisfaction
0.71***

0.32***

0.83

Local political trust

Policy appraisal

0.58***

0.69***

0.33

0.71*** (0.22***)

Benefit perception
0.14*

0.06

Resource allocation
Figure 3. Antecedents and consequences model of local political trust.
Note: Numbers shown are the standardized path coefficients. Observed indicators for the latent
factors are not shown.
* p < 0.05; *** p < 0.001

Discussion
In the present study we examined the possible antecedents and consequences
of local political trust during postearthquake rehabilitation in China. As expected,
the results showed that local political trust was predicted by both perceived
support from local government and policy appraisal. Local political trust not

Antecedents and effects of local political trust

937

only affected the assessment of local government, but also influenced public
behavioral intent about resource allocation. These findings are consistent with
those of previous researchers investigating political trust, even though those
studies were carried out in the context of a political system different from that
of China (Hibbing & Theiss-Morse, 2001; Owen & Dennis, 2001; Ulbig, 2002).
More importantly, in this research we investigated the mediator role of benefit
perception in the relationship between local political trust and public resource
allocation preferences. The more people trust the local government, the more
benefit they perceive they will obtain from the public infrastructure, and as a
result, the more money they are willing to allocate to public infrastructure. This
finding offers another possible explanation to Hetheringtons (2005) theory of
political trust, in which political trust is considered to be most consequential
among those who are asked to sacrifice their own material interests.
The current study is limited because it was conducted in a particular period of
postearthquake rehabilitation. The two antecedents of local political trust were
based on interviews and observations that were the most relevant in that specific
situation. In the general context of China, other factors that influence public
trust in the government may exist. These factors require further exploration in
the future. Furthermore, this was a cross-sectional study and no strict causal
inferences can be drawn from the results. To date, in very few studies on political
trust have experimental methods or the analysis of panel data been employed.
Innovative use of laboratory- or survey-based experiments would certainly
enhance our understanding of the causes and consequences of political trust.
Despite the limitations mentioned above, our findings have some important
implications. We have provided empirical evidence for an integrated model of
political trust. Our results suggest that perceived informational and emotional
support, as well as policy appraisal, are very important in increasing public trust in
local governments. In addition to sufficient material support, we found that local
governments need to provide more informational and emotional support to the
public, and also need to consider the public voice in the process of making policy
decisions. In an economic environment where governments are experiencing
increasing pressure to provide effective services with fewer resources, our model
suggests that political trust may help to enhance the cooperative behaviors of the
public, and these behaviors then contribute to the shaping of highly productive
and efficient governance.
In summary, perceived support from local government and policy appraisal
were two critical factors predicting local political trust during the postearthquake
rehabilitation. Political trust in local government affects both public attitudes
and behaviors. By identifying factors that are related to political trust and its
subsequent attitudinal and behavioral consequences, we have provided insights
into the role of political trust in a Chinese social and political context.

938

Antecedents and effects of local political trust

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