Trust is a widely discussed and studied concept in the social sciences. During the recent years we have seen multiple discussions concerning the empirical dimensions/forms of trust (e.g. recently Fisher 2010, Fisher 2011, Hooghe 2010 on political trust). These discussions were paralleled by the creation of new conceptual offsprings of the bigger trust concept such as social trust, political trust, generalized trust, particularized trust, strategic trust, moralistic trust, identity-based trust etc.. The result is what one might call an impervious jungle of trust concepts. In addition, disagreement remains with regard to the existence of different dimensions/forms of trust. In this paper I argue that a formal trust statement may help us to arrive at a clearer understanding of what trust really is. A formal statement allows for organizing numerous trust conceptions in an elegant way and for illustrating in what way we can speak of different dimensions/forms of trust. Finally, it discloses that the debates concerning the forms of trust are partly at cross-purposes because they concern different components of a trust judgment. Relying on different datasets and using the examples of “political trust” and “social trust” I show that trust is indeed multi-dimensional with regard to the target component of the trust judgment. Individuals differentiate between different trustees in their judgments. Besides, the “extensiveness” of this differentiation is related to individual characteristics such as education and political knowledge. Both my theoretical discussion as well as the empirical results have important implications for trust research in general and more specifically for the issue of trust measurement in the social sciences. Justin Fisher, Jennifer van Heerde and Andrew Tucker (2010). Does One Trust Judgement Fit All? Linking Theory and Empirics. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 12, 161–188. Justin Fisher, Jennifer van Heerde-Hudson and Andrew Tucker (2011). Why Both Theory and Empirics Suggest There is More than One Form of Trust: A Response to Hooghe. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13, 276–281. Marc Hooghe (2011). Why There is Basically Only One Form of Political Trust. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13, 269–275.
