Abstract

To achieve their goals, organizations for individuals with intellectual disability have to stimulate high-quality relationships between professionals and family members. Therefore, achieving professionals’ trust in family members has become a challenge. One relevant factor in explaining professional’s trust in families is the degree to which family members use the “problem-solving” conflict management strategy in their disputes–disagreements with professionals. It is reasonable to argue that when family members use problem-solving conflict management, professionals’ trust increases. Professionals’ trust, in turn, stimulates the use of problem-solving strategies by family members. However, it is also plausible that professionals are the initiators of this positive spiral. To examine this relationship between problem solving and trust over time, we conducted a longitudinal survey study in which 329 professionals reported on these two constructs three times. Using structural equation modeling, we compared four nested models: stability, causality, reversed causation, and reciprocal. The results of the χ2 difference tests, regarding the comparison of the models, showed that the reciprocal model was significantly superior to the alternative proposals. Our findings supported a complex view of the relationships between problem-solving conflict management and trust, based on dynamic reciprocal relationships over time.