Attitudes and Trust of 6-year-old Children to Unfamiliar Adults: The Pilot Study

A multi-dimensional trust model is presented, which includes two dimensions: (a) levels of trust (interpersonal, microgroup, and group), and (b) types of trust (information-influentive, confidentially-protective, and activity-coping). The sample included 51 six-year-old Russian children (27 boys, 24 girls). A projective Test of Children's Trust To Unfamiliar Adults was applied. The study examined the components (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) of the interpersonal confidentially-protective children's trust to the unfamiliar adults. It showed that a lot of children have the attitude to the contact with the unfamiliar adults. 6-year-olds lacked the differentiated system of conceptions about the qualities of the unfamiliar adults and they attributed general and formal characteristics to them. Most of the children perceived the unfamiliar adults positively. The system of emotional attitudes towards adult strangers of some children appeared not to have been developed. Children more often demonstrated the behavioral distrust to the unfamiliar adults than trust to them.