View source for Trust (social sciences)

{{For|other types of trust|Trust (disambiguation){{!}}Trust}}

In a social context, '''trust''' has several connotations.<ref>McKnight, D. H., and Chervany, N. L. (1996). [http://www.misrc.umn.edu/wpaper/wp96-04.htm The Meanings of Trust. Scientific report, University of Minnesota.]</ref> Definitions of trust<ref>Mayer, R.C., Davis J.H., Schoorman F.D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review. 20 (3), 709-734.</ref><ref>Bamberger, Walter (2010). [http://www.ldv.ei.tum.de/en/research/fidens/interpersonal-trust/ "Interpersonal Trust – Attempt of a Definition"]. Scientific report, Technische Universität München. Retrieved 2011-08-16.</ref> typically refer to a situation characterized by the following aspects: One party (trustor) is willing to rely on the actions of another party (trustee); the situation is directed to the future. In addition, the trustor (voluntarily or forcedly) abandons control over the actions performed by the trustee. As a consequence, the trustor is uncertain about the outcome of the other's actions; they can only develop and evaluate expectations. The uncertainty involves the risk of failure or harm to the trustor if the trustee will not behave as desired.

Trust can be attributed to relationships between people. It can be demonstrated that humans have a natural disposition to trust and to judge trustworthiness that can be traced to the neurobiological structure and activity of a human brain. Some studies indicate that trust can be altered e.g. by the application of [[oxytocin]].<ref>Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U., and Fehr, E. (2005) Oxytocin increases trust in humans" ''Nature'' 435, 2005, 673-676.</ref>

Conceptually, trust is also attributable to relationships within and between social groups (history, families, friends, communities, organisations, companies, nations, etc.). It is a popular approach to frame the dynamics of inter-group and intra-group interactions in terms of trust.<ref>Hardin, R. (eds.) (2002). Trust and trustworthiness. Russell Sage Foundation.</ref>

When it comes to the relationship between people and technology, the attribution of trust is a matter of dispute. The [[intentional stance]]<ref>Dennett, D.C. (1989) The Intentional Stance. Bradford Books.</ref> demonstrates that trust can be validly attributed to human relationships with complex technologies. However, rational reflection leads to the rejection of an ability to trust technological artefacts.<ref>Shneiderman, B. (2000) Designing trust into online experiences. Communications of the ACM Volume 43, Number 12, Pages 57-59</ref>

One of the key current challenges in the social sciences is to re-think how the rapid progress of technology has impacted constructs such as trust. This is specifically true for information technology that dramatically alters causation in social systems.<ref>Luhmann, N. (2005) Risk: a sociological theory. AldineTransaction.</ref>

In the social sciences, the subtleties of trust are a subject of ongoing research. In [[sociology]] and [[psychology]] the degree to which one party trusts another is a measure of [[belief]] in the [[honesty]], fairness, or [[wikt:benevolence|benevolence]] of another party. The term "[[confidence]]" is more appropriate for a belief in the [[Skill|competence]] of the other party. Based on the most recent research {{Citation needed|date=October 2011}}, a failure in trust may be [[forgive]]n more easily if it is interpreted as a failure of competence rather than a lack of benevolence or honesty. In [[economics]] trust is often conceptualized as reliability in transactions. In all cases trust is a [[heuristic]] decision rule, allowing the human to deal with complexities that would require unrealistic effort in rational reasoning.

==Sociology==
When it comes to trust, 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,<ref>Luhmann, N. (1979) Trust and Power. John Wiley & Sons.</ref> Barber <ref>Barber, B. (1983) The Logic and Limits of Trust. Rutgerts University Press.</ref> and Giddens<ref>Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration; Polity Press, Cambridge 1984</ref> (see <ref>Sztompka, P. (1999) Trust: A Sociological Theory. Cambridge University Press.</ref> for a more detailed overview). This growth of interest in trust has been stimulated by on-going changes in society, characterised as late [[modernity]] and [[post-modernity]].

Trust is one of several social constructs, an element of the social reality.<ref>Searle, J. R. (1995) The Construction of Social Reality. The Free Press</ref> Other constructs, frequently discussed together with trust, are: control, confidence, risk, meaning and power. Trust is naturally attributable to relationships between social actors, both individuals and groups (social systems). Because trust is a social construct, it is valid to discuss whether trust can be trusted (e.g.<ref>Gambetta, D. (2000) Can We Trust Trust? In: Gambetta, D. (ed.) Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations, electronic edition, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, chapter 13, pp. 213-237.</ref>), i.e. whether social trust operates as expected.

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, all contingent possibilities should be always considered, leading to a paralysis of inaction. Trust can be seen as a bet on one of contingent futures, the one that may deliver 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. Because of it, trust acts as a reductor of social complexity, allowing for actions that are otherwise too complex to be considered (or even impossible to consider at all); specifically for cooperation.<ref>Bachmann R., (2001) Trust, Power and Control in Transorganizational Relations. Organization Studies 22(2), 337-365.</ref>
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]]). Similarly, views on trust follow this dichotomy. Therefore, on one side the systemic role of trust can be discussed, with a certain disregard to the psychological complexity underpinning individual trust. The behavioural approach to trust is usually assumed <ref>Coleman, J. (1990) Foundations of Social Theory. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.</ref> while actions of social actors are measurable, leading to statistical modelling of trust. This systemic approach can be contrasted <ref>Castelfranchi, C., Falcone, R. (2000) Trust Is Much More than Subjective Probability: Mental Components and Sources of Trust. Proc. of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-Volume 6.</ref> 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.<ref>Mollering, G. (2005) The Trust/Control Duality: An Integrative Perspective on Positive Expectations of Others. In: Int. Sociology, September 2005, Vol. 20(3): 283–305. 2005.</ref> 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.<ref>Baier, A. (1986) Trust and antitrust. Ethics, vol. 96, pp. 231-260. Reprinted in: Moral Prejudices. Cambridge University Press.</ref>

Modern information technologies not only facilitated the transition towards post-modern society, but they also challenged traditional views on trust. Empirical studies <ref>Lacohée, H., Cofta, P., Phippen, A., and Furnell, S. (2008) Understanding Public
Perceptions: Trust and Engagement in ICT Mediated Services. International Engineering
Consortium.</ref> confirms the new approach to the traditional question regarding whether technology artefacts can be attributed with trust. Trust is not attributable to artefacts, but it is a representation of trust in social actors such as designers, creators and operators of technology. Properties of technological artefacts form a message <ref>Bohmann, K. (1989). About the Sense of Social Compatibility. AI and Society. 3 (4), 323-331.</ref> to determine trustworthiness of those agents.

The discussion about the impact of information technologies is still in progress. However, it is worth noting a conceptual re-thinking of technology-mediated social groups,<ref>Willson, M. A. (2006) Technically Together: Rethinking Community within Techno-society. Peter Lang Publishing Inc.</ref> or the proposition of a unifying socio-technical view on trust,<ref>Cofta, P. (2007). Trust, Complexity and Control: Confidence in a Convergent World. John Wiley and Sons.</ref> from the perspective of social actors.

==Psychology==

In psychology, trust is believing that the person who is trusted will do what is expected. It starts at the family and grows to others. According to the [[psychoanalysis|psychoanalyst]] [[Erik Erikson]] development of basic trust is the [[Erikson's stages of psychosocial development|first state psychosocial development]] occurring, or failing, during the first two years of life. Success results in feelings of security, trust, and optimism, while failure leads towards an orientation of insecurity and mistrust<ref>{{cite web|author=Child Development Institute Parenting Today |url=http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/erickson.shtml |title=Stages of Social-Emotional Development In Children and Teenagers |publisher=Childdevelopmentinfo.com |accessdate=2013-01-04}} {{dead link|date=August 2014}}</ref> possibly resulting in [[attachment disorder]]s.<ref>Fonagy, Peter. ''Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis''. Other Press Professional, 2010. Print. ISBN 1590514602</ref>

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]].<ref name=deneve&cooper>{{cite journal|last=DeNeve|first=Kristina M.|author2=Cooper, Harris |title=The Happy Personality: A Meta-Analysis of 137 Personality Traits and Subjective Well-Being|journal=Psychological Bulletin|year=1998|volume=124|pages=197–229|url=http://www.subjectpool.com/ed_teach/y5_ID/personality/wellbeing/1998_Deneve_cooper_psych_bull.pdf|doi=10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.197|pmid=9747186|issue=2}}</ref>
It has been argued that trust increases subjective well-being because it enhances the quality of one's interpersonal relationships, and happy people are skilled at fostering good relationships.<ref name=deneve1999>{{cite journal|last=DeNeve|first=Kristina M. |title=Happy as an Extraverted Clam? The Role of Personality for Subjective Well-Being
| journal=Current Directions in Psychological Science
| year=1999|volume=8|pages=141–144|url=http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/8/5/141.abstract|issue=5|doi=10.1111/1467-8721.00033}}</ref>

Trust is integral to the idea of [[social influence]]: 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, [[Institutional trust|institution]]s (e.g. [[government agency|government agencies]]) and objects such as [[machine]]s. However, once again perception of honesty, competence and value similarity (slightly similar to benevolence) are essential. There are three different forms of trust. 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, and trust propensity being able to rely on people.<ref>[http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=main.showContent&view=fulltext&format=HTML&id=2007-09571-002 Relationship and Risk taking]</ref> 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. Hence being and acting trustworthy should be considered the only sure way to maintain a trust level.

Increasingly much research has been done on the notion of trust and its social implications:

* Barbara Misztal, in her book,<ref name="BarbaraMisztal">Barbara Misztal, ''Trust in Modern Societies: The Search for the Bases of Social Order'', Polity Press, ISBN 0-7456-1634-8</ref> attempts to combine all notions of trust together. She points out ''three basic things that trust does in the lives of people'': It makes social life ''predictable'', it creates a ''sense of [[community]]'', and it ''makes it easier for people to work together''.
* In the context of sexual trust Riki Robbins<ref name="RikiRobbins">Riki Robbins, ''Betrayed!: How You Can Restore Sexual Trust and Rebuild Your Life'', Adams Media Corporation, ISBN 1-55850-848-1</ref> describes four stages of trust.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.innerself.com/Relationships/Four_Stages_of_Trust.htm |title=Four stages of trust |publisher=Innerself.com |accessdate=2013-01-04}}</ref>
* In the context of [[Information theory]] Ed Gerck defines and contrasts trust with social functions such as [[Power (philosophy)|power]], surveillance, and [[accountability]].<ref name="Ed Gerck">Ed Gerck, ''Trust Points'', Digital Certificates: Applied Internet Security by J. Feghhi, J. Feghhi and P. Williams, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-30980-7, 1998.</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Ed Gerck |url=http://mcwg.org/mcg-mirror/trustdef.htm |title=Definition of trust |publisher=Mcwg.org |date=1998-01-23 |accessdate=2013-01-04}}</ref>
* From a [[social identity]] perspective, the propensity to trust in strangers (see [[in-group favoritism]]) arises from the mutual knowledge of a shared group membership,<ref name=Platow2012>{{cite journal | last1 = Platow | first1 = M. J. | last2 = Foddy | first2 = M. | last3 = Yamagishi | first3 = T. | last4 = Lim | first4 = L. | last5 = Chow | first5 = A. | year = 2012 | title = Two experimental tests of trust in in-group strangers: The moderating role of common knowledge of group membership | url = | journal = European Journal of Social Psychology | volume = 42 | issue = | pages = 30–35 | doi=10.1002/ejsp.852}}</ref><ref name="Foddy2009"/> stereotypes,<ref name=Foddy2009>{{cite journal | last1 = Foddy | first1 = M. | last2 = Platow | first2 = M.J. | last3 = Yamagishi | first3 = T. | year = 2009 | title = Group-based trust in strangers: The role of stereotypes and expectations | url = | journal = Psychological Science | volume = 20 | issue = | pages = 419–422 | doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02312.x}}</ref> or the need to maintain the group's positive distinctiveness.<ref name="Tanis2005"/>

In addition to the social influence, in organizational settings, trust may have a positive influence on the behaviors, perceptions, and [[performance]]s of a person. Trust has a circular relationship with [[organizational justice]] perceptions such that perceived justice leads to trust which, in turn, promotes future perceptions of justice.<ref>DeConick, J. B. (2010). The effect of organizational justice, perceived organizational support, and perceived supervisor support on marketing employees’ level of trust. Journal of Business Research, 63, 1349-1355.</ref> One factor that enhances trust in a human being is facial resemblance. Through digital manipulation of facial resemblance in a two person sequential trust game evidence was found supporting that having similar [[facial feature]]s (facial resemblance) enhanced trust in a subject’s respective partner.<ref>DeBruine, Lisa (2002). Facial Resemblance Enhances Trust. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 269(1498): 1307-1312. {{doi|10.1098/rspb.2002.2034}}</ref> Though facial resemblance was shown to increase trust, facial resemblance had the effect of decreased sexual desire 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 said 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.<ref>{{cite journal|last=DeBruine|first=Lisa|title=Trustworthy but not lust-worthy: context-specific effects of facial resemblance|journal=[[Proceedings of the Royal Society B]]|date=3 November 2005|volume=272|issue=1566|pages=919–22|jstor=30047623|doi=10.1098/rspb.2004.3003|pmid=16024346|pmc=1564091}}</ref> Structure often creates trust in a person that encourages them to feel comfortable and excel in the workplace. Working anywhere may be [[Workplace stress|stress]]ful and takes effort. By having a conveniently organized area to work on, concentration will increase as well as effort. Structure is not just a method of order. It increases trust and therefore makes a workplace manageable. A structured, ordered environment produces trust as one may contain increased cooperation and perform on a higher level.

People may work together and achieve success through trust while working on projects that rely on each individual’s contribution.<ref>The Role of Trust in Organizational Settings, Kurt T. Dirks, Donald L. Ferrin, 2001</ref>

Conversely, where trust is absent, projects can fail, especially if this lack of trust has not been identified and addressed. This is one facet of [[VPEC-T]] analysis: This thinking framework is used when studying information systems. Identifying and dealing with cases where information providers, information users, and those responsible for processing information do not trust one another can result in the removal of a risk factor for a project.

One's social relationship characterized by low trust and norms that discourage academic engagement are expected to be associated with low academic achievement. Individuals that are in relationships characterized by high levels of social trust are more apt to openly exchange information and to act with caring benevolence toward one another than those in relationships lacking trust.<ref>Goddard, Roger. Relation Network, Social Trust, and Norms: A Social Capitol Perspective on Students' Chances of Academic Success</ref>

An important key to treating [[sexual victimization]] of a child is the rebuilding of trust between parent and child. Failure for the adults to validate the [[sexual abuse]] contributes to the child's difficulty towards trusting self and others.<ref>TIMMONS-MITCHELL, JANE. TREATING SEXUAL VICTIMIZATION: DEVELOPING TRUST-BASED RELATING IN THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER DYAD</ref> Trust is often affected by the erosion of a marriage{{Citation needed|date=October 2011}}. Children of divorce 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.<ref name="King2002">King, Valarie. Parental Divorce and Interpersonal Trust in Adult Offspring. Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Aug., 2002), pp. 642-656. Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3599931</ref>

===The social identity approach===
The [[social identity approach]] explains trust in strangers as a function of group-based stereotypes or [[ingroup favoritism|in-group favouring]] behaviours based on [[self-categorization theory|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.<ref name="Platow2012"/><ref name="Tanis2005"/><ref name="Foddy2008"/> 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.<ref name="Foddy2008"/>

There is considerable empirical activity related to the social identity approach. Allocator studies have frequently been employed to understand group-based trust in strangers.<ref name="Platow2012"/><ref name="Foddy2009"/><ref name=Foddy2008>Foddy, M., & Dawes, R. (2008). Group-based trust in social dilemmas. In A. Biel, D. Eek, T. Garling, & M. Gustafsson (Eds.), New Issues and Paradigms in Research on Social Dilemmas (pp. 57-85). New York, USA: Springer Science and Business Media.</ref><ref name=Guth2006>Guth, W., Levati, M.V., Ploner, M. (2006). Social identity and trust – An experimental investigation. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 37, 1293-1308.</ref> They may be operationalised as unilateral or bilateral 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 would be asked to choose between envelopes containing money that was previously allocated by an in-group or out-group member.<ref name="Foddy2008"/> They would have had 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.<ref name=Brewer1999>Brewer, M.B. (1999). The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love or outgroup hate? Journal of Social Issues, 55, 429-444.</ref> Participants could expect an amount ranging from nothing to the maximum value an allocator could give out. In bilateral studies of trust have employed an investment game devised by Berg and colleagues where individuals could choose to give a portion or none of their money to another.<ref name=Berg1995>Berg, J., Dickhaut, J., & McCabe, K. (1995). Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behaviour, 10, 122-142</ref> Any amount given would be tripled and the receiver would then decide on whether they would return the favour by giving money back to the sender. Trusting behaviour on the part of the sender and the eventual trustworthiness of the receiver was exemplified through the giving of money.<ref name=Tanis2005>{{cite journal | last1 = Tanis | first1 = M. | last2 = Postmes | first2 = T. | year = 2005 | title = A social identity approach to trust: Interpersonal perception, group membership and trusting behaviour | url = | journal = European Journal of Social Psychology | volume = 35 | issue = | pages = 413–424 | doi=10.1002/ejsp.256}}</ref><ref name="Foddy2008"/>

The above 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.<ref name="Foddy2009"/><ref name="Foddy2008"/><ref name="Guth2006"/> This occurred even when the in-group stereotype was comparatively less positive than an out-group’s (e.g. psychology versus nursing majors),<ref name="Foddy2009"/> in the absence of personal identity cues,<ref name="Tanis2005"/> 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).<ref name="Platow2012"/> In contrast, when only the recipient was made aware of group membership trust becomes reliant upon group stereotypes.<ref name="Foddy2009"/><ref name="Tanis2005"/> The group with the more positive stereotype was trusted (e.g. one’s university affiliation over another),<ref name="Tanis2005"/> even over that of the in-group (e.g. nursing over psychology majors).<ref name="Foddy2009"/> Another reason for in-group favouring behaviours in trust could be attributed to the need to maintain in-group [[Social identity theory#Positive distinctiveness|positive distinctiveness]], particularly in the presence of social identity threat.<ref name="Guth2006"/> It should also be noted that trust in out-group strangers increased when personal cues to identity were revealed.<ref name="Tanis2005"/>

==Philosophy==
Some philosophers argue that trust is more than a relationship of reliance. Philosophers such as Annette Baier have made a difference between trust and reliance by saying that trust can be betrayed, whilst reliance can only be disappointed (Baier 1986, 235).<ref>Baier, Annette (1986). Trust and Antitrust. Ethics 96(2): 231-260. Available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381376</ref> 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).<ref>McLeod, Carolyn (2006). Trust. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trust</ref> Thus, trust is different from reliance in the sense that a truster accepts the risk of being betrayed.

The definition of trust as a belief in something or a confident expectation about something<ref>"trust." Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 25 May. 2013. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trust</ref> leads to eliminate the notion of risk from the definition, 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, rather it is in the consistency of the data of our habits. As a result, there is no risk or betrayal because the data now exists as collective knowledge.

==Economics==
Trust in economics is treated as an explanation for a difference between actual human behaviour 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]] and the observed equilibrium. Such an approach can be applied to individuals and well as societies.

Trust is also seen as an economic lubricant, reducing the cost of transactions between parties, enabling new forms of cooperation and generally furthering business activities;,<ref name="Morgan 20–38">{{cite journal|last=Morgan|first=Robert|author2=Hunt, S. |authorlink2=Shelby D. Hunt |title=The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing|journal=The Journal of Marketing|date=July 1994|volume=58|issue=3|pages=20–38|doi=10.2307/1252308}}</ref><ref>Zheng, J. Roehrich, J.K. and Lewis, M.A. (2008). The dynamics of contractual and relational governance: Evidence from long-term public-private procurement arrangements. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management. 14(1): 43-54. http://www.scopus.com/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-41049112855&origin=inward&txGid=yXIvJQ7AsPq0YyDQfJmJLCa%3a2</ref> employment and prosperity. This observation <ref>Fukuyama, F. (1996) Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, Touchstone Books.</ref> created a significant interest in considering trust as a form of [[social capital]] and has led research into closer understanding of the process of creation and distribution of such capital. It has been claimed that higher level of social trust is positively correlated with economic development. 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 <ref>Zak, P. J., and Knack, S. (2001) Trust and growth. Economic Journal,111: [http://www.jstor.org/pss/2667866 295]-321.</ref> and that a low level of trust inhibits economic growth.

Theoretical economical modelling <ref>Braynov, S., and Sandholm, T. (2002) Contracting With Uncertain Level Of Trust. Computational Intelligence 18(4): pp. 501-514</ref> demonstrated that the optimum level of trust that a rational economic agent should exhibit in transactions is equal to trustworthiness of the other party. Such a level of trust leads to efficient market. Trusting less lead to the loss of economic opportunities, 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 increase in profit margin <ref>Resnick, P. (2006) The value of reputation on eBay: a controlled experiment. Experimental Economics, volume 9, Issue 2, Jun 2006, Page 79-101.</ref> or decrease in transactional cost can be used as indicators of 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 to estimate confidence in monetary terms.<ref>Keser, C. (2003) Experimental games for the design of reputation management systems. IBM Systems J., vol. 42, no. 3.</ref> Games of trust are designed in a way that their Nash equilibrium differ from Pareto optimum so that no player alone can maximise his own utility by altering his selfish strategy without cooperation while cooperating partners can benefit.

The classical version of the game of trust has been described in <ref>Berg, J., Dickhaut, J., and McCabe, K. (1995) Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History, Games and Economic Behavior 10, 122–142. [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WFW-45NJFPR-14&_user=10&_coverDate=07/31/1995&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=49474c64b2d97b84891f6009445ffd76&searchtype=a Abstract.]</ref> as an abstracted investment game, using the scenario of an investor and a broker. 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 re-pay 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 one-off, or as a repetitive one, between 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,<ref>Airiau, S., and Sen, S. (2006) Learning to Commit in Repeated Games. In: Proc. of the Fifth Int. Joint Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS06).</ref> 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,<ref>Bolton, G. E., Katok, E., and Ockenfels, A. (2003) How Effective are Electronic Reputation Mechanisms? An Experimental Investigation.</ref> with or without information about reputation.

Other interesting games are e.g. binary-choice trust games,<ref>Camerer, C., and Weigelt, K. (1988) Experimental Tests of a Sequential Equilibrium Reputation Model. Econometrica 56(1), pp. 1-36.</ref> the gift-exchange game <ref>Fehr, E., Kirchsteiger, G., and Riedl, A. (1993) Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation. Quarterly J. of Economics 108(May), pp. 437-60.</ref> and various other forms of social games. Specifically games based on the [[Prisoner's Dilemma]] <ref>Poundstone, W. (1992) Prisoner's Dilemma. Doubleday, NY.</ref> are popularly used to link trust with economic utility and demonstrate the rationality behind reciprocity.

The popularisation of [[e-commerce]] 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.<ref>McKnight, D., H., Chervany, N. L. (2001) Conceptualizing Trust: A Typology and E-Commerce Customer Relationships Model. Proc. of the 34th Hawaii Int. Conf. on System Sciences.</ref> For example, inter-personal relationship between the buyer and the seller has been dis-intermediated by the technology,<ref>Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Polity Press. 1991.</ref> and had to be improved upon.<ref>Golbeck, J. (2008). Computing with Social Trust. Springer.</ref> Alternatively, web sites could be made to convince the buyer to trust the seller, regardless of seller's actual trustworthiness (e.g.<ref>Egger, F. N. From Interactions to Transactions: Designing the Trust Experience for Business-to-Consumer Electronic Commerce. PhD Thesis, Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands).</ref>) . Reputation-based systems improved on trust assessment by allowing to capture the collective perception of trustworthiness, generating significant interest in various models of reputation.<ref>Chang, E., Dillion, T., Hussain, F. K. (2006) Trust and Reputation for Service-Oriented Environments: Technologies for Building Business Intelligence and Consumer Confidence. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.</ref>

==Systems==
In [[systems]], a trusted component has a set of properties which another component can rely on. If A trusts B, this means that 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 happens 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.<ref>
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.
</ref>

==See also==
{{Columns-list|3|

* [[Attachment theory]]
* [[Credulity]]
* [[Gullibility]]
* [[Intimacy]]
* [[Misplaced trust]]
* [[Personal boundaries]]
* [[Position of trust]]
* [[Source criticism]]
* [[Swift trust theory]]
* [[Trust metric]]
* [[Trusted system]]
}}

<ref name="Morgan 20–38"/>

==References==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Further reading==
* Bachmann, Reinhard and Zaheer, Akbar (eds.)(2006). Handbook of Trust Research. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
* [[Cristina Bicchieri|Bicchieri, Cristina]], Duffy, John and Tolle, Gil (2004.) "Trust among strangers", Philosophy of Science 71: 1-34.
* Marková, I., Linell, P & Gillespie, A. (2007). [http://lse.academia.edu/AlexGillespie/Papers/1347711/Trust_and_distrust_in_society 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. (1998, January). 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). [http://lse.academia.edu/AlexGillespie/Papers/1347655/The_intersubjective_dynamics_of_trust_distrust_and_manipulation 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

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|trustworthy}}
{{Commons category|Trust}}
* {{PhilPapers|category|trust|Trust}}
* {{InPho|idea|1592|Trust}}
* {{SEP|trust|Trust}}
* [http://www.wilderdom.com/games/TrustActivities.html Trust Building Activities]
* [http://www.sociology.ox.ac.uk/papers/trustbook.html Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations], edited by Diego Gambetta
* [https://archive.org/details/AmITrust1950 ''Am I Trustworthy?'' (1950) Educational video clip]
*[http://www.stonybrook.edu/trust/ Stony Brook University weekly seminars on the issue of trust in the personal, religious, social, and scientific realms]
*[http://web.missouri.edu/~jamesha/trust/index.htm World Database of Trust] Harvey S. James, Jr., Ph.D (Updated August 2007) A variety of definitions of trust are collected and listed.

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trust (Social Sciences)}}
[[Category:Social psychology]]
[[Category:Reputation management]]
[[Category:Concepts in ethics]]
[[Category:Accountability]]
[[Category:Social epistemology]]
[[Category:Sociological terminology]]