![Country-level estimates of trust, OWID](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Country-level_estimates_of_trust%2C_OWID.svg)
Trust is the willingness of one
party
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature f ...
(the trustor) to become vulnerable to another party (the trustee) on the presumption that the trustee will act in ways that benefit the trustor.
In addition, the trustor does not have control over the actions of the trustee.
Scholars distinguish between generalized trust (also known as social trust), which is the extension of trust to a relatively large circle of unfamiliar others, and particularized trust, which is contingent on a specific situation or a specific relationship.
As the trustor is
uncertain about the outcome of the trustee's actions, the trustor can only develop and evaluate expectations. Such expectations are formed with a view to the
motivation
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...
s of the trustee, dependent on their characteristics, the situation, and their interaction.
The uncertainty stems from the risk of failure or harm to the trustor if the trustee does not behave as desired.
In the social sciences, the subtleties of trust are a subject of ongoing research. In
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
and
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
, the degree to which one party trusts another is a measure of belief in the honesty, fairness, or benevolence of another party. The term "confidence" is more appropriate for a belief in the
competence
Competence may refer to:
*Competence (geology), the resistance of a rock against deformation or plastic flow.
*Competence (human resources), a standardized requirement for an individual to properly perform a specific job
*Competence (law), the me ...
of the other party. A failure in trust may be
forgive
Forgiveness, in a psychological sense, is the intentional and voluntary process by which one who may initially feel victimized or wronged, goes through a change in feelings and attitude regarding a given offender, and overcomes the impact of t ...
n more easily if it is interpreted as a failure of competence rather than a lack of benevolence or honesty. In
economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...
, trust is often conceptualized as reliability in transactions. In all cases, trust is a
heuristic
A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, ...
decision rule, allowing the human to deal with complexities that would require unrealistic effort in rational reasoning.
Sociology
Sociology claims trust is one of several
social constructs
Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theor ...
; an element of the social reality. Other constructs frequently discussed together with trust include control, confidence, risk, meaning and power. Trust is naturally attributable to relationships between social actors, both individuals and groups (social systems). Sociology is concerned with the position and role of trust in social systems. Interest in trust has grown significantly since the early eighties, from the early works of Luhmann, Barber and Giddens (see for a more detailed overview). This growth of interest in trust has been stimulated by ongoing changes in society, specifically known as
late modernity
Late modernity (or liquid modernity) is the characterization of today's highly developed global societies as the continuation (or development) of modernity rather than as an element of the succeeding era known as postmodernity, or the postmodern ...
and
post-modernity
Postmodernity (post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist ''after'' modernity. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in the late 20th century – in the ...
.
Sviatoslav
Sviatoslav (russian: Святосла́в, Svjatosláv, ; uk, Святосла́в, Svjatosláv, ) is a Russian and Ukrainian given name of Slavic origin. Cognates include Svetoslav, Svatoslav, , Svetislav. It has a Pre-Christian pagan charact ...
contended that society needs trust because it increasingly finds itself operating at the edge between confidence in what is known from everyday experience and contingency of new possibilities. Without trust, one should always consider all contingent possibilities, leading to
paralysis by analysis
Analysis paralysis (or paralysis by analysis) describes an individual or group process where overanalyzing or overthinking a situation can cause forward motion or decision-making to become "paralyzed", meaning that no solution or course of acti ...
. In this sense, trust acts as a decisional heuristic, allowing the decision maker to overcome
bounded rationality
Bounded rationality is the idea that rationality is limited when individuals make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisfactory rather than optimal.
Limitations include the difficulty of ...
and process what would otherwise be an excessively complex situation. Trust can be seen as a bet on one of many contingent futures, specifically, the one that appears to deliver the greatest benefits. Once the bet is decided (i.e. trust is granted), the trustor suspends his or her disbelief, and the possibility of a negative course of action is not considered at all. Hence trust acts as a reducing agent of
social complexity
In sociology, social complexity is a conceptual framework used in the analysis of society. In the sciences, contemporary definitions of complexity are found in systems theory, wherein the phenomenon being studied has many parts and many possible ...
, allowing for
cooperation
Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English) is the process of groups of organisms working or acting together for common, mutual, or some underlying benefit, as opposed to working in competition for selfish benefit. Many animal a ...
.
Sociology tends to focus on two distinct views: the macro view of social systems, and a micro view of individual social actors (where it borders with
social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the r ...
). Similarly, views on trust follow this dichotomy. On one side, the systemic role of trust can be discussed with a certain disregard to the psychological complexity underpinning individual trust. The behavioral approach to trust is usually assumed while actions of social actors are measurable, leading to statistical modelling of trust. This systemic approach can be contrasted with studies on social actors and their decision-making process, in anticipation that understanding of such a process will explain (and allow to model) the emergence of trust.
Sociology acknowledges that the contingency of the future creates dependency between social actors, and specifically that the trustor becomes dependent on the trustee. Trust is seen as one of the possible methods to resolve such a dependency, being an attractive alternative to control. Trust is specifically valuable if the trustee is much more powerful than the trustor, yet the trustor is under social obligation to support the trustee.
Modern information technologies have not only facilitated the transition towards a post-modern society, but have also challenged traditional views on trust.
Information system
An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...
s research has identified that individuals have evolved to trust in technology, demonstrated by two primary constructs. The first consists of human-like constructs including benevolence, honesty and competence, whilst the second employs system-like constructs such as usefulness, reliability and functionality. The discussion surrounding the relationship between information technologies and trust is still in progress as research remains in its infant stages.
Types
Four types of social trust are recognized:
*
Generalized trust
Generalized trust, also known as spontaneous sociability, is the trust that people have in their fellow members of society in general. It is often measured in survey-based social science research by asking the question, "Generally speaking, would y ...
, or trust in strangers, is an important form of trust in modern society, involving a large amount of social interactions among strangers.
*
Out-group Outgroup may refer to:
* Outgroup (cladistics), an evolutionary-history concept
* Outgroup (sociology)
In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contras ...
trust is the trust an individual has in members of a different group. This could be members of a different ethnic group, or citizens of a different country, for example.
*
In-group
In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify. People may for example ide ...
trust is that which is placed in members of one's own group.
*Trust in
neighbors considers the relationships between individuals who share a common residential environment.
Influence of ethnic diversity
Several dozen studies have examined the impact of
ethnic diversity
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...
on social trust. Research published in the
Annual Review of Political Science
''Annual Review of Political Science'' is an annual peer-reviewed academic journal published by Annual Reviews, covering significant developments in the field of political science, including political theory and philosophy, international relatio ...
concluded that there were three key debates on the subject:
# Why does ethnic diversity modestly reduce social trust?
# Can
contact
Contact may refer to:
Interaction Physical interaction
* Contact (geology), a common geological feature
* Contact lens or contact, a lens placed on the eye
* Contact sport, a sport in which players make contact with other players or objects
* ...
reduce the negative association between ethnic diversity and social trust?
# Is ethnic diversity a stand-in for social disadvantage?
The review's
meta-analysis
A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...
of 87 studies showed a consistent, though modest, negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust. Ethnic diversity has the strongest negative impact on neighbor trust, in-group trust, and generalized trust. It did not appear to have a significant impact on out-group trust. The limited size of the impact means apocalyptic claims about it are exaggerated.
Psychology
In psychology, trust is believing that the person who is trusted will do what is expected. According to the
psychoanalyst
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...
Erik Erikson
Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity cr ...
, development of basic trust is the
first state of psychosocial development occurring, or failing, during the first two years of life. Success results in feelings of security and optimism, while failure leads towards an orientation of insecurity and mistrust possibly resulting in
attachment disorder
Attachment disorder is a broad term intended to describe disorders of mood, behavior, and social relationships arising from unavailability of normal socializing care and attention from primary care giving figures in early childhood. Such a fail ...
s. A person's dispositional tendency to trust others can be considered a personality trait and as such is one of the strongest predictors of subjective well-being.
Trust increases subjective well-being because it enhances the quality of one's interpersonal relationships; happy people are skilled at fostering good relationships.
Trust is integral to the idea of
social influence
Social influence comprises the ways in which individuals adjust their behavior to meet the demands of a social environment. It takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience (human behavior), obedience, lead ...
: it is easier to influence or persuade someone who is trusting. The notion of trust is increasingly adopted to predict acceptance of behaviors by others,
institution
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
s (e.g.
government agencies
A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administratio ...
) and objects such as machines. Yet once again, perceptions of honesty, competence and value similarity (slightly similar to benevolence) are essential.
There are three different forms of trust commonly studied in psychology. Trust is being vulnerable to someone even when they are trustworthy. Trustworthiness are the characteristics or behaviors of one person that inspire positive expectations in another person. Trust propensity is the tendency to make oneself vulnerable to others in general. Research suggests that this general tendency can change over time in response to key life events. Once trust is lost, by obvious violation of one of these three determinants, it is very hard to regain. Thus there is clear asymmetry in the building versus destruction of trust.
Increasingly in recent times, research has been conducted regarding the notion of trust and its social implications:
* In her book,
[Barbara Misztal, ''Trust in Modern Societies: The Search for the Bases of Social Order'', Polity Press, ] Barbara Misztal attempts to combine all notions of trust together. She describes three basic things that trust does in the lives of people: it makes social life predictable, it creates a sense of
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
, and it makes it easier for people to work together.
* In the context of sexual trust, Riki Robbins
[Riki Robbins, ''Betrayed!: How You Can Restore Sexual Trust and Rebuild Your Life'', Adams Media Corporation, ] describes four stages. These consist of perfect trust, damaged trust, devastated trust and restored trust.
* In the context of
information theory
Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...
, Ed Gerck defines and contrasts trust with social functions such as
power
Power most often refers to:
* Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work"
** Engine power, the power put out by an engine
** Electric power
* Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events
** Abusive power
Power may a ...
, surveillance, and
accountability
Accountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the publ ...
.
[Ed Gerck, ''Trust Points'', Digital Certificates: Applied Internet Security by J. Feghhi, J. Feghhi and P. Williams, Addison-Wesley, , 1998.]
* From a
social identity
Identity is the qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, and/or expressions that characterize a person or group.Compare ''Collins Dictionary of Sociology'', quoted in
In sociology, emphasis is placed on collective identity, in which ...
perspective, the propensity to trust strangers (see
in-group favoritism
In-group favoritism, sometimes known as in-group–out-group bias, in-group bias, intergroup bias, or in-group preference, is a pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, ...
) arises from the mutual knowledge of a shared group membership,
stereotype
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
s,
or the need to maintain the group's positive distinctiveness.
Despite the centrality of trust to the positive functioning of humans and relationships, very little is known about how and why trust evolves, is maintained, and is destroyed.
One factor that enhances trust among humans is facial resemblance. Through digital manipulation of facial resemblance in a two-person sequential trust game, supporting evidence was found that having similar
facial feature
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may affe ...
s (facial resemblance) enhanced trust in a subject's respective partner. Though facial resemblance was shown to increase trust, it also had the effect of decreased
sexual desire
Sexual desire is an emotion and motivational state characterized by an interest in sexual objects or activities, or by a drive to seek out sexual objects or to engage in sexual activities. It is an aspect of sexuality, which varies significantly ...
in a particular partner. In a series of tests, digitally manipulated faces were presented to subjects to be evaluated for attractiveness within the context of a long-term or short-term relationship. The results showed that within the context of a short-term relationship, which is dependent on sexual desire, similar facial features caused a decrease in desire. Within the context of a long-term relationship, which is dependent on trust, similar facial features increased the attractiveness of an individual, leading one to believe that facial resemblance and trust have great effects on relationships.
Interpersonal trust literature
suggests that trust-diagnostic situations provide a means by which individuals can gauge or alter the level of trust in relationships. Trust-diagnostic situations refer to in trust or "strain-test" situations which test partners' ability to act in the best interests of the other individual or the relationship, simultaneously rejecting that option which is in one's personal
self-interest
Self-interest generally refers to a focus on the needs or desires (''interests'') of one's self. Most times, actions that display self-interest are often performed without conscious knowing. A number of philosophical, psychological, and economi ...
. Trust-diagnostic situations occur throughout the course of everyday life, though can be created by individuals wanting to test the current level of trust in a relationship.
Low trust relationships occur where individuals have little confidence their partner is truly concerned about them or the relationship.
Those in low trust relationships tend to make distress-maintaining attributions whereby the consequences of partner's negative behavior become of greatest focus, and any impacts of positive actions are minimized. This feeds into the overarching notion that the individual's partner is disinterested in the relationship, and any positive acts are met with
skepticism
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...
, leading to further negative outcomes.
Distrusting individuals may not always engage in opportunities for trusting relationships. Someone who was subject to an abusive childhood may have been deprived of any evidence that trust is warranted in future interpersonal relationships.
An important key to treating
sexual victimization
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assau ...
of a child is the rebuilding of trust between parent and child. Failure for the adults to validate the
sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
contributes to the child's difficulty towards trusting self and others. Moreover, trust can often be affected by the
erosion of a marriage. Children of
divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...
do not exhibit less trust in mothers, partners, spouses, friends, and associates than their peers of intact families. The impact of parental divorce is limited to trust in the father.
Importantly, trust may be placed in non-human agents in addition to human targets. For instance, people may trust in animals, in the scientific process,
and in social machines. Trust helps create a social contract that allows humans and domestic animals to live together. Trust in the scientific process is associated with increased trust in innovations such as biotechnology.
When it comes to trust in social machines, people are more willing to trust intelligent machines with humanoid morphologies and female cues and when they are focused on tasks (versus socialization)
and when they behave in morally good ways.
More generally, they may be trusted as a function of the machine heuristic—the mental shortcut assuming that machines are less biased, more accurate, and more reliable than are humans such that people may sometimes trust a robot more than a human.
Humans have a natural
disposition
A disposition is a quality of character, a habit, a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way.
The terms dispositional belief and occurrent belief refer, in the former case, to a belief that is held in the mind bu ...
to trust and to judge trustworthiness of other individuals or groups of humans and things - in developing relationships with potential
mentors
Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...
worthy of trust for example, perhaps as part of interprofessional work in the referral pathway from an emergency department to a hospital ward, or as part of the process and work of building knowledge on whether the new practices, people, and things introduced into our lives are indeed accountable or worthy of investing confidence and trust in (as captured by the empirically grounded construct of 'Relational Integration' within
Normalization Process Theory
Normalization process theory (NPT) is a sociological theory, generally used in the fields of science and technology studies (STS), Implementation Science, and healthcare system research. The theory deals with the adoption of technological and or ...
). This can be traced in
neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...
terms to the
neurobiological
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...
structure and activity of a human brain. Some studies indicate that trust can be altered e.g. by the application of
oxytocin
Oxytocin (Oxt or OT) is a peptide hormone and neuropeptide normally produced in the hypothalamus and released by the posterior pituitary. It plays a role in social bonding, reproduction, childbirth, and the period after childbirth. Oxytocin ...
.
Social identity approach
The
social identity approach
The term social identity approach refers to research and theory pertaining to social identity theory and self-categorization theory—two intertwined, but distinct, social psychological theories. Haslam, A. S. (2001). Psychology in Organizations. ...
explains trust in strangers as a function of group-based stereotypes or
in-group favoring behaviors based on
salient group memberships. With regard to ingroup favoritism, people generally think well of strangers but expect better treatment from in-group members in comparison to out-group members. This greater expectation then translates into a higher propensity to trust an in-group rather than out-group member.
It has been pointed out that it is only advantageous to form such expectations of an in-group stranger if they too know the group membership of the recipient.
There is considerable empirical activity related to the social identity approach. Allocator studies have frequently been employed to understand group-based trust in strangers.
They may be operationalized as
unilateral
__NOTOC__
Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find disagreeable. As a word, ''un ...
or
bilateral
Bilateral may refer to any concept including two sides, in particular:
* Bilateria, bilateral animals
*Bilateralism, the political and cultural relations between two states
*Bilateral, occurring on both sides of an organism ( Anatomical terms of ...
relationships of exchange. General social categories such as university affiliation, course majors, and even ad-hoc groups have been used to distinguish between in-group and out-group members. In unilateral studies of trust, the participant is asked to choose between envelopes containing money that was previously allocated by an in-group or out-group member.
They have no prior or future opportunities for interaction, simulating
Brewer's notion that group membership was sufficient in bringing about group-based trust and hence cooperation.
Participants could expect an amount ranging from nothing to the maximum value an allocator could give out. Bilateral studies of trust have employed an investment game devised by Berg and colleagues where individuals choose to give a portion or none of their money to another.
[Berg, J., Dickhaut, J., & McCabe, K. (1995). "Trust, reciprocity, and social history". ''Games and Economic Behaviour'', 10, 122–142] Any amount given would be tripled and the receiver would then decide whether they would return the favor by giving money back to the sender. Trusting behavior on the part of the sender and the eventual trustworthiness of the receiver was exemplified through the giving of money.
Empirical research has demonstrated that when group membership is made salient and known to both parties, trust is granted more readily to in-group members than out-group members.
This occurred even when the in-group stereotype was comparatively less positive than an out-group's (e.g. psychology versus nursing majors),
in the absence of personal identity cues,
and when participants had the option of a sure sum of money (i.e. in essence opting out of the need to trust a stranger).
In contrast, when only the recipient was made aware of group membership, trust becomes reliant upon group stereotypes.
The group with the more positive stereotype was trusted (e.g. one's university affiliation over another)
even over that of the in-group (e.g. nursing over psychology majors).
Another reason for in-groups favoring behaviors in trust could be attributed to the need to maintain in-group
positive distinctiveness, particularly in the presence of social identity threat.
Trust in out-group strangers increased when personal cues to identity were revealed.
Philosophy
Whilst many philosophers have written about different forms of trust, most would agree interpersonal trust is the foundation on which these forms can be modeled.
For an act to be classed as an expression of trust, it must not betray the expectations of the trustee. In this sense, some philosophers such as Lagerspetz argue that trust is a kind of reliance, though not merely reliance.
Gambetta argued it is the inherent belief that others generally have good intentions which is the foundation for our reliance on them. Philosophers such as
Annette Baier
Annette Claire Baier (née Stoop; 11 October 1929 – 2 November 2012) was a New Zealand philosopher and Hume scholar, focused in particular on Hume's moral psychology. She was well known also for her contributions to feminist philosophy and to ...
have contended this view, establishing a difference between trust and reliance by saying that trust can be betrayed, whilst reliance can only be disappointed (Baier 1986, 235). Carolyn McLeod explains Baier's argument by giving the following examples: we can rely on our clock to give the time, but we do not feel betrayed when it breaks, thus, we cannot say that we trusted it; we are not trusting when we are suspicious of the other person, because this is in fact an expression of distrust (McLeod 2006).
The violation of trust warrants this sense of betrayal. Thus, trust is different from reliance in the sense that a trustor accepts the risk of being betrayed.
Karen Jones proposed that there is an emotional aspect to trust, an element of
optimism
Optimism is an attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the outcome of some specific endeavor, or outcomes in general, will be positive, favorable, and desirable. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass filled wi ...
that the trustee will do the right thing by the trustor, also described as affective trust.
Though, in some circumstances, we trust others even without the optimistic expectation, instead hoping the mere recognition that the person is being trusted in itself will prompt the favorable action. This is known as therapeutic trust and gives both the trustee a reason to be trustworthy, and the trustor a reason to believe they are trustworthy. In these situations, the sense of betrayal upon violation of trust is commonly warranted.
The definition of trust as a belief in something or a confident expectation about something eliminates the notion of risk, because it does not include whether the expectation or belief is favorable or unfavorable. For example, to have an expectation of a friend arriving to dinner late because she has habitually arrived late for the last fifteen years, is a confident expectation (whether or not we agree with her annoying late arrivals). The trust is not about what we wish for, but rather it is in the consistency of the data of our habits. As a result, there is no risk or sense of betrayal because the data now exists as collective knowledge. Faulkner
contrasts such predictive trust with aforementioned affective trust, proposing predictive trust may only warrant disappointment as a consequence of an inaccurate prediction, not betrayal.
Economics
Trust in economics is treated as an explanation for a difference between actual human behavior and the one that can be explained by the individual desire to maximize one's utility. In economic terms, trust can provide an explanation of a difference between
Nash equilibrium
In game theory, the Nash equilibrium, named after the mathematician John Nash, is the most common way to define the solution of a non-cooperative game involving two or more players. In a Nash equilibrium, each player is assumed to know the equili ...
and the observed equilibrium. Such an approach can be applied to individuals as well as societies.
Trust is important to economists for many reasons. Taking the "
Market for Lemons
''The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism'' is a widely-cited 1970 paper by economist George Akerlof which examines how the quality of goods traded in a market can degrade in the presence of information asymmetry betwe ...
" transaction popularized by
George Akerlof
George Arthur Akerlof (born June 17, 1940) is an American economist and a university professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and Koshland Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. ...
as an example, if a buyer of a car doesn't trust the seller to not sell a lemon, the transaction won't be entered into. The buyer won't enter into the transaction in the absence of trust, even if the product is of great value to the buyer. Trust can act as an economic lubricant, reducing the cost of transactions between parties, enabling new forms of cooperation and generally furthering business activities;
employment and prosperity. This observation created a significant interest in considering trust as a form of
social capital
Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
and has led research into closer understanding of the process of creation and distribution of such capital. It has been claimed that a higher level of social trust is positively correlated with
economic development
In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and o ...
. Even though the original concept of 'high trust' and 'low trust' societies may not necessarily hold, it has been widely accepted and demonstrated that social trust benefits the economy and that a low level of trust inhibits
economic growth
Economic growth can be defined as the increase or improvement in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy in a financial year. Statisticians conventionally measure such growth as the percent rate of ...
. The absence of trust restricts growth in employment, wages and profits, thus reducing the overall welfare of society.
Theoretical economical modelling demonstrates that the optimum level of trust that a rational economic agent should exhibit in transactions is equal to the trustworthiness of the other party. Such a level of trust leads to an efficient market. Trusting less leads to the loss of economic opportunities, while trusting more leads to unnecessary vulnerabilities and potential exploitation. Economics is also interested in quantifying trust, usually in monetary terms. The level of correlation between an increase in
profit margin
Profit margin is a measure of profitability. It is calculated by finding the profit as a percentage of the revenue.
\text = =
There are 3 types of profit margins: gross profit margin, operating profit margin and net profit margin.
* Gross Prof ...
or a decrease in transactional costs can be used as indicators of the economic value of trust.
Economic 'trust games' are popularly used to empirically quantify trust in relationships under laboratory conditions. There are several games and game-like scenarios related to trust that have been tried, with certain preferences to those that allow the estimation of confidence in monetary terms. Games of trust are designed in a way such that the Nash equilibrium differs from
Pareto optimum
Pareto efficiency or Pareto optimality is a situation where no action or allocation is available that makes one individual better off without making another worse off. The concept is named after Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), Italian civil engine ...
so that no player alone can maximize his own utility by altering his selfish strategy without cooperation. Cooperating partners can also benefit. The classical version of the game of trust has been described as an abstracted investment game, using the scenario of an investor and a broker. The investor can invest a fraction of his money, and broker can return only part of his gains. If both players follow their economical best interest, the investor should never invest and the broker will never be able to repay anything. Thus the flow of money flow, its volume and character is attributable entirely to the existence of trust. The game can be played as a once-off, or repeatedly, with the same or different sets of players to distinguish between a general propensity to trust and trust within particular relationships. Several other variants of this game exist. Reversing rules lead to the game of distrust, pre-declarations can be used to establish intentions of players, while alterations to the distribution of gains can be used to manipulate perception of both players. The game can be also played by several players on the closed market, with or without information about reputation.
Other interesting games are e.g. binary-choice trust games, the gift-exchange game and various other forms of social games. Specifically games based on the
Prisoner's Dilemma
The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("defe ...
are popularly used to link trust with economic utility and demonstrate the rationality behind reciprocity.
The popularization of
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
opened the discussion of trust in economy to new challenges while at the same time elevating the importance of trust, and desire to understand customer decision to trust. For example, interpersonal relationships between buyers and sellers have been disintermediated by the technology, and consequentially required improvement. Websites can influence the buyer to trust the seller, regardless of the seller's actual trustworthiness (e.g.). Reputation-based systems improved on trust assessment by allowing to capture the collective perception of trustworthiness, generating significant interest in various models of reputation.
Management and organization science
In management and organization science, trust is studied as a factor that can be managed and influenced by organizational actors. Scholars have paid particular attention to how trust develops across individual and organizational levels of analysis. They suggest a reciprocal process where organizational structures influence individuals’ trust and, at the same time, individuals’ trust manifests in organizational structures. Trust is also one of the conditions of an
organizational culture
Historically there have been differences among investigators regarding the definition of organizational culture. Edgar Schein, a leading researcher in this field, defined "organizational culture" as comprising a number of features, including a s ...
that supports
knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (namely, information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, peers, families, communities (for example, Wikipedia), or within or between organizations. It bridges the ind ...
.
An organizational culture that supports knowledge sharing allows employees to feel secure and comfortable to share their knowledge, their work and their expertise.
Structure often creates trust in a person that encourages them to feel comfortable and excel in the workplace; it makes an otherwise stressful environment manageable. By having a conveniently organized area to work on, concentration will increase as well as effort.
Management and organization science scholars have also paid attention to how trust is influenced by contracts and how trust interacts with formal mechanisms. Parallel to the very large interest in trust, scholars in management and related disciplines have made the case for the importance of distrust as a related but distinct construct.
Since the mid-1990s, a substantial body of organizational research has fallen into one of two distinct but nonexclusive paradigms of trust research.
The first paradigm distinguishes between two major dimensions of trust. Trust in another can be characterized as cognition-based trust (i.e., based on rational calculation) and affect-based trust (i.e., based on emotional attachment). For example, trust in an auto repair shop could come in the form of an assessment of the capabilities of the shop to do a good job repairing one's car (cognition-based trust) or having a longstanding relationship with the shop's owner (affect-based trust). The second paradigm distinguishes between the trustworthiness factors that give rise to trust (i.e., one's perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity) and trust itself.
Together, these paradigms are useful for predicting how different dimensions of trust form in organizations via the demonstration of various trustworthiness attributes.
Systems
In
systems
A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and express ...
, a trusted component has a set of properties which another component can rely on. If A trusts B, a violation in those properties of B might compromise the correct operation of A. Observe that those properties of B trusted by A might not correspond quantitatively or qualitatively to B's actual properties. This occurs when the designer of the overall system does not take the relation into account. In consequence, trust should be placed to the extent of the component's trustworthiness. The trustworthiness of a component is thus, not surprisingly, defined by how well it secures a set of functional and non-functional properties, deriving from its architecture, construction, and environment, and evaluated as appropriate.
[
Paulo Verissimo, Miguel Correia, Nuno F. Neves, Paulo Sousa. "Intrusion-Resilient Middleware Design and Validation". In ''Annals of Emerging Research in Information Assurance, Security and Privacy Services'', H. Raghav Rao and Shambhu Upadhyaya (eds.), Elsevier, to appear. 2008.]
See also
References
Further reading
*
Bachmann, Reinhard and Zaheer, Akbar (eds) (2006). ''Handbook of Trust Research''. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
*
Bicchieri, Cristina, Duffy, John and Tolle, Gil (2004). "Trust among strangers", ''Philosophy of Science'' 71: 1–34.
* Herreros, Francisco (2023). "
The State and Trust". ''Annual Review of Political Science'' 26 (1)
* Marková, I., Linell, P & Gillespie, A. (2007)
"Trust and distrust in society" In Marková, I. and Gillespie, A. (Eds.) ''Trust and distrust: Socio-cultural perspectives''. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc.
* Kelton, Kari; Fleischmann, Kenneth R. & Wallace, William A. (2008). "Trust in Digital Information". ''Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology'', 59(3):363–374.
* Kini, A., & Choobineh, J. (January 1998). "Trust in electronic commerce: Definition and theoretical considerations". Paper presented at the Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Kohala Coast, HI.
* Gillespie, A. (2007)
"The intersubjective dynamics of trust, distrust and manipulation" In Markova and Gillespie (Eds), ''Trust & Distrust: Socio-cultural Perspectives''. Charlotte, NC: Info Age.
* Maister, David H., Green, Charles H. & Galford, Robert M. (2000). ''The Trusted Advisor''. Free Press, New York
*Schilke, Oliver; Reimann, Martin; Cook, Karen S. (2021).
Trust in Social Relations. ''Annual Review of Sociology''. 47(1).
External links
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Trust Building Activities edited by Diego Gambetta
''Am I Trustworthy?'' (1950) Educational video clipStony Brook University weekly seminars on the issue of trust in the personal, religious, social, and scientific realmsHarvey S. James, Jr., Ph.D. (Updated August 2007) A variety of definitions of trust are collected and listed.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trust (Social Sciences)
Interpersonal relationships
Reputation management
Concepts in ethics
Accountability
Social constructionism
Social epistemology
Sociological terminology
Emotions
Moral psychology