TRUST

Trust is a complex phenomenon consisting of behavioral as well as cognitive and affective elements.

Trusting behavior is generally characterized by risk. In the most basic case of interpersonal trust one individual—the trustor—is disposed to act in a way such that another individual—the trustee—is put in a position to do something disadvantageous or harmful to the trusting person. A standard example is that of a person, A, entrusting another, B, with something that A values. This will give B discretionary powers that may be used in undesired ways. In trusting, we intentionally accept being vulnerable to the actions of another person. We take these risks even though we might be in a position to rule out such risks.

As rational individuals we engage in trusting behavior only if we are sufficiently certain that those trusted will not let us down. This introduces the cognitive element of trust, namely trusting expectations. Persons are said to have trusting expectations if they expect another person not to abuse options given to this person as a result of trusting behavior. Trusting behavior, as well as trusting expectations, may be based on solid information about the situation of the trustee, his or her options, beliefs, and preferences. But trust, in some deeper sense, extends beyond such “pure reliance.”

The affective character of deeper forms of trust is difficult to identify, and is the object of some dispute. It can certainly not be reduced to a simple characteristic nonpropositional feel. One way of trying to get a grip on it is by following a conception that can be traced back to Aristotle. An emotional attitude is, by this conception, characterized by the way its holder perceives the world. Two features of the characteristic perspective of a trustor seem to be crucial: first, the trustee is perceived as a person who can be held responsible for his or her acts. Second, the trustee is perceived as someone connected to oneself by shared aims or shared normative convictions. That the trustee is seen as a person driven by compatible motives and committed to certain normative standards is, of course, a source of trusting expectations and thus fosters trusting behavior. Both a personal attitude toward the trustee and normative connectedness in the sense described are without doubt characteristic of deeper forms of trust. They are emotional in that they cannot be understood as the result of rational considerations based on given information. By inducing certain patterns in the way in which the world is represented in thought, they rather form a certain frame for rational considerations.

It has been debated whether affective elements of trust can play a decisive role in social interaction. But it seems that even in the distant relationships of economic exchange pure cognitive trust based on rational evaluation of given information may not suffice to establish any significant degree of trustful cooperation. There is considerable empirical evidence that, in fact, some shared normative frame is needed to stimulate and preserve cooperative exchange within groups and between groups.

In typical trust relationships, the trustee will gain discretionary powers by the trusting moves of the trustor, who, in turn, can act in such ways just because he or she trusts. So both gain power in the [Page 676]simple Hobbesian sense: trust offers them additional present means to obtain future goods. The possibility of mutual gain is a typical feature of cooperative relationships. Conversely, most cooperative relationships exhibit the typical risks of trust. Thus, trust is an important requisite for social cooperation. The cooperative relationships of a person—his or her possibilities to engage in trusting relations as a trustor as well as a trustee—form an important social and economic asset. They are a central part of what is now called the social capital of that person. Societies characterized by a social structure that allows for a broad variety of cooperative trusting relationships and by a normative frame that encourages engaging in such relationships are particularly successful in several respects. Thus, Francis Fukuyama argues that the economic development of a country significantly depends on the capability of its citizens to enter trustful relationships with relative strangers, and Robert Putnam found that societies with a quality that he calls civicness, which is particularly characterized by private and public trust, are best suited to develop and efficiently make use of liberal democratic institutions.

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