Interpersonal Trust and Construct Complexity for Positively and Negatively Evaluated Persons
College subjects were administered Rotter's Interpersonal Trust Scale and a modified version of Bieri's grid procedure for measur ing cognitive complexity for positive and negative social stimuli. As hypothesized, low trusters had significantly more differentiated cognitions for socially distant persons than high trusters. Contrary to hypotheses, socially close persons yielded significantly lesser complexity for high trusters than low trusters and significantly greater complexity for females than males. It was concluded that low generalized expectancies for interpersonal trust might be more adaptive and less problematical than previously contended.