Competence and Benevolence as Dimensions of Trust: Lecturers' Trustworthiness in the Words of Italian Students.

Trustworthiness includes at least two dimensions: one dimension captures the authority's benevolence; the other captures authority's competence. This qualitative study explores the representation of the two dimensions of authority trustworthiness: competence and benevolence. We collected free-associations about what lecturers' competence and benevolence actually mean for Italian psychology students ( = 125).