What are trust clusters?
- Kevan Lamm
- Sep 24
- 2 min read
There are few choices that are more personal than the food we eat. Trusting the food we consume is one of the most important reasons while we will, or won't, eat something. However, until now we've tended to treat trust as a one-dimensional concept, either it exists or it doesn't. In a new research study conducted with several amazing co-authors we demonstrate how trust is a multi-dimensional concept.
This was a fun article to write because it introduced a new way to think about trust, particularly in agriculture and the food system. The underlying premise is that trust is composed of different types of trust. First, trust has a dispositional property. Some of us are more prone and predisposed to trust than others. Next, trust has an affective or emotional component. Our feelings provide data regarding whether something should be trusted. Lastly, trust has a cognitive component. Cognition, or effortful thought, is the highest order of trust and it is also one of the most challenging to engage. Rather than treating trust as a single construct (like most research) this study looked at all three aspects of trust.
The results indicate that there are differences in the way individuals engage in trust and when we look at the different dimensions together some interesting patterns - clusters - emerge. Specifically,
some individuals simply lack trust across all three dimensions. It might be particularly challenging to change levels of trust with this group.
to the contrary, some individuals readily trust. This group has a tendency to trust across dimensions.
a third cluster was termed "on the fence". This group might be persuaded to trust in one dimension or another, but there were less pronounced trends.
the 'trust new food not science or sources' cluster represents a novel group of individuals that may struggle to trust scientist, and would more readily trust their instincts (feelings) about food.
the 'trust science not new food' cluster tended to have higher levels of dispositional trust and cognitive trust, but lower levels of affective trust. This might indicate a general preference to avoid new foods or novel food experiences.
Hopefully this post and associated research are useful to begin thinking about trust from multiple perspectives, rather than just as a unidimensional concept. Doing so might make it easier to communicate with different clusters based on unique trust profiles and needs. I've included the full article if you would like to read more. Please be sure to share your insights using the comments below.
Lamm, A. J., Lamm, K. W., Byrd, A. R., Gabler, N., Sanders, C. E., & Retallick, M. S. (2025). Utilizing dimensions of trust to communicate with consumers about the science behind food. Foods, 14(10), 1674. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14101674
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