This thesis investigates the impact of the voice modality on user trust in conversational chatbot interfaces. The assumption is that trust can be increased by adding voice output to a chatbot and by a higher quality of a used text-to-speech synthesis. The thesis first introduces chatbots and the concept of conversational interfaces then defines trust in an online context. Based on this, a model for trust and perceiving factors for credibility, ease of use and risk is defined. An online experiment is conducted where participants run through conversational scenarios with a chatbot while varying the voice output. Followed by a survey to collect data about the perception of the trust factors for a scenario with no voice and two scenarios with different speech synthesis qualities. To analyse the ordinal data from the survey the ”Wilcoxon signed- rank test”, a nonparametric statistical test, is conducted to compare trust for the voice output types. Results show that adding the voice output modality to a conversational chatbot interface increases the user trust towards the service. Furthermore, the assumption that synthesis quality has an effect on trust could not hold true because the results are not statistically significant. On this basis, the limitations of the used methods are discussed and suggestions for further research are proposed. / Detta examensarbete undersöker den inverkan som röstmodaliteten har på användarförtroende i konversationsbaserade gränssnitt för chatbottar. Antagandet är att förtroendet kan ökas, dels genom att addera röstutmatning till chatbotten och dels genom att text-till-röst-syntesen ges hög kvalité. Först introduceras chatbottar och konceptet konversationsbaserade gränssnitt. Därefter definieras örtroende i en online-kontext. Baserat på detta definieras en modell för förtroende samt uppfattningsfaktorer för trovärdighet, lättanvändhet och risk. Ett onlineexperiment utfördes, där deltagare går igenom konversationscenarion med en chatbot medan röstutmatningen varieras. Därefter följde en undersökning ämnad att samla in data om uppfattningen om förtroendefaktorerna för ett scenario utan röst och två scenarion med olika talsyntes-kvalitéer. För att analysera den ordnade datan från undersökningen genomfördes Wilcoxon signedrank-testet, ett ickeparametriskt statistiskt test, för att jämföra förtroenden för de olika röstutmatningstyperna. Resultaten visar att addering av röstutmatningsmodalitet till ett konversationsbaserat chatbotsgränsnitt ökar användares förtroende för tjänsten. Vidare, antagandet att synteskvalitén har effekt på förtroendet kunde inte verifieras därför att resultaten inte är statistiskt signifikanta. Begränsningarna hos de använda metoderna diskuteras och förslag för framtida forskning läggs fram.

This study investigates the experiences of a minority group regarding the fulfilment and implementation of their minority rights within a local context. It explores the impact of this implementation on the affected minority group's trust in the political institution responsible for its execution. The research specifically focuses on examining the minority rights of Swede-Finns residing in Örebro municipality, which is an administrative area with extended minority rights for this group. The study employed qualitative interviews conducted with Swede-Finns living in Örebro municipality, followed by transcription and thematic text analysis of the interview data. In terms of theoretical perspectives, an institutional micro-perspective was adopted to interpret and analyze the results related to trust. Lipsky's theory of street-level bureaucracy and Lundqvist's theory of implementation were utilized to interpret and analyze the minority group's experiences with implementation. The findings reveal significant deficiencies in the implementation of minority rights across various areas as perceived by the minority group. Furthermore, the results suggest that the group's trust in the political institution responsible for implementation has been undermined due to the perceived long-standing failure to deliver and the perception that minority rights are not taken seriously within the local context. / <p>2023-06-01</p>

This dissertation is an examination of trust in vaccine science, with a focus on ideas about vaccination outside the scientific consensus. It is grounded in empirical research, including 35 interviews and a review of publicly available documents, books, and academic articles. Theoretically, it is informed by theories in the sociology of science, social movements, and the sociology of expertise. In substantive chapters, it investigates the origins of the modern ‘anti-vaccine’ movement, the spread of the movement's ideas in different sociocultural and political contexts, and the perspectives and personal experiences of those who are part of the movement. Overall, it contributes to a growing body of literature that aims to change the conversation around vaccine hesitancy from an information-deficit problem to an issue about trust in institutions. The dissertation is organized into three main papers. The first is an analysis of a specific historic episode, namely the 1998 MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine-autism controversy. I find that institutional incentive structures unintentionally circulated misinformation about the MMR vaccine by former medical doctor Andrew Wakefield and posit the role that academic reward structures have in fostering public trust. The second paper examines vaccine hesitancy with a social movement lens, specifically focusing on the strategies used by the anti-vaccine movement to organize and frame their message. I introduce the concept of an ‘anti-scientific intellectual movement’ to understand the increasing trend of social groups opposing science as a set of institutions. The third paper is a study of the lived experiences of participants who were interviewed in 2019 about their views on vaccination and how their individual experiences and meaning-making activities impacted their trust in vaccine science. I find strong distrust in scientific institutions, a desire for open dialogue and debate, and dissatisfaction with the ‘anti-vaccine’ label which participants felt erased the nuance in their perspectives. Altogether, this dissertation makes significant contributions to ongoing discussions about the public face of science and how to effectively engage with public audiences to build trust. / Dissertation / Candidate in Philosophy

Thesis advisor: Raquel Muñiz / The concept of trust at the central office level has been examined primarily between the superintendent and schools or school leaders. The literature speaks to variable ways that researchers define teams in organizational settings, measure team effectiveness in education, and capture the importance of trust in teams. However, there is a gap in the educational literature concerning trust and teams, specifically among teams within the central office in the K-12 education setting. During times of crisis, trust becomes even more critical, as does the expectation that teams are working interdependently, rather than working in silos (Cornell & Sheras, 1998). Through a qualitative case study of one district with more than 5,000 students in the northeast region of the United States, I examined collective trust in teams at the district level through the examination of the five facets of trust, leadership behaviors that create the conditions for team member inclusion as a means of working across boundaries, and the presence of a collective mission toward collective action.I found that the perceptions of trust among district leaders and principals varied and that the variance was influenced by one’s seniority in the district hierarchy. Proactive strategies for team member inclusion were impacted by a leader’s perception of his/her power to influence a given situation. Moreover, the stated purpose of team missions was most often connected to information-sharing; thus, district meetings were perceived as transactional in nature. As such, the findings support a small number of recommendations within K-12 districts to create the conditions for greater inclusion and collective trust in teams at the central office level: (1) narrow the five facets of trust that matter to district leaders and team members to align perception and expectations around what builds trusting relationships; (2) explicitly work to invite participation of team members to create inclusive communities; and (3) clearly define and consistently communicate an individual team’s purpose to create a collective mission aligned to overall district goals. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

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The purpose of this paper is to attempt to identify if different levels of young members of parliament have a noticeable effect on young voters. This is done by examining electoral turnout and trust in parliament through statistical analysis using Denmark and Sweden as comparative cases. This paper is grounded in recent studies and research into young voter behaviour and relevant factors for political participation, it also takes into account the increasing volume of argumentative writings on increasing representation of young voters in official offices such as parliaments. The data used for the statistical analysis is the European Social Survey, specifically round 9. In 2018 both Sweden and Denmark were at the end of government periods and therefore the data takes into account a period of differing levels in young members of parliament. The findings of this study confirm differences between young voters of Sweden and Denmark, trust does not differ despite different levels of young members of parliament between Denmark and Sweden but electoral turnout does and young age is much less important for young voter turnout in Sweden compared to Denmark. Which could be related to the different levels of young members of parliament.

Interpersonal trust reflects a vital component of all social relationships. Trust has been linked to a wide variety of individual and group outcomes in the literature, including personal satisfaction and motivation, willingness to take risks, and organizational success (Dirks & Ferrin, 2001; Pratt & Dirks, 2007; Simpson, 2007). In this dissertation I tested a new conceptual model evaluating the roles of attachment, propensity to trust, perceived similarity of trustee to self, and social exchange processes in trust development with randomly assigned, same-sex undergraduate roommates. Two hundred and fourteen first-year students (60% female, 85% Caucasian, mean age = 18) at a large south-eastern university completed self-report measures once per week during the first five weeks of the fall semester. Perceived similarity measured the second week of classes and social exchange measured three weeks later combined to provide the best prediction of participants' final trust scores. Attachment and propensity to trust, more distal predictors, did not have a significant relationship with trust. This study demonstrated that trust is strongly related to perceived similarity, as well as social exchange. A prime contribution of this study is the longitudinal, empirical test of a model of trust development in a new and meaningful relationship. Future work may build on this research design and these findings by focusing on early measurement of constructs, measuring dyads rather than individuals, and incorporating behavioral measures of trust. / Ph. D.

This thesis explored the cognitive, character-inference process that Dirks & Skarlicki (2004) assert contributes to trust development. Self-reported transformational leadership, leader integrity, organizational justice, and leader prototypicality correlated positively with cognitive trust in this sample of 81 student employees (63% female, mean age 20.5) of a large southeastern university. Leader prototypicality, a cognitive evaluation process, partially mediated the relationship between leader integrity and trust. This study's prime contribution was the longitudinal, empirical test of a model of trust development in interdependent leader-follower dyads. Future research may explore other antecedents of trust, assess how the cognitive process of trust development occurs, or investigate the relationship-based social exchange mechanism Dirks and Skarlicki (2004) suggest contributes to the development of affective trust. / Master of Science