Gender-Specific Relationships Between Trust-Suspicion, Locus of Control, and Psychological Distress

Summary Forty-two male and 84 female undergraduates completed measures for locus of control (I-E), psychological stress (Em), and trust-suspicion (T-S). Split-half reliabilities for the new six-item T-S scale developed in this research ranged from .76 to .83. T-S scores showed a low correlation with I-E (r ≤ .26) and did not differ for males and females. However, among males only external I-E was related to reported stress (p < .01). Both external I-E (p < .01) and suspicion (p < .01) were found to be independently related to stress among females.