Going back to the source: Why do people trust each other?

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Due to the confines of space and the desire for ‘flow’ to my argument, I can deal with the caveats and objections here! First, I would argue that even a trust-initiating behaviour with a complete stranger still involves an assessment of their trustworthiness: instinctive perhaps and certainly based on flimsy evidence, but nevertheless an assessment is made. For example, when I need directions in a strange city, I wait until I encounter someone who looks like they are a local and can probably speak English (=ability), and who seems from their demeanour to be kind (=benevolence), and unlikely to rob me, or lie to me for fun (=integrity). This decision is either pure guesswork or hope, in which case it's not really ‘trust’ in the sense of being based on ‘confident positive expectations’, or it's a reasoned-ish decision based on at least some evidence. See also my later argument on trust in surgeons. Second, it may be that ‘ABI’ does not cover every dimension of a person's trustworthiness. I suspect that ‘predictability’/ ‘reliability’ is an additional and distinct dimension (Dietz & den Hartog, 2006), as do Cunningham and McGregor (Citation2000), Mishra and Mishra (Citation2008), and Tzafrir and Dolan (2004). Mishra and Mishra see ‘openness’ as another key trustworthiness indicator. Tzafrir and Dolan's measure (2004) includes ‘harmony’. Relatedly, the focal party's trustworthiness – their ‘ABI + ’ – may not be the only assessment made prior to the trust decision. The assessment can also be made of the relationship. Indeed, research in Eastern contexts suggests that these more ‘personalised’ considerations predominate (Li, 2007, 2008), and that they may be independent from ‘ABI’. In response, I'd suggest that guanxi testimonies and ‘personal trustfulness’ (Li, 2007, 2008) might be interpreted as sending cues as to a person's ABI+ (‘he's good at his job’; ‘I've always found her to be honest’). But I am making the broader claim that the sequence is universal, not the content. Third, the trusting behaviour may not come. Trust and trustworthiness are not equivalents; the decision to trust (trust-as-choice) does not automatically follow from evidence of someone's trustworthiness (trust-as-attitude). There may be valid reasons not to go ahead with the risk-taking act, even if I consider someone to be trustworthy: perhaps because I do not need to take the risk or because the risk is too great, despite my partner's trustworthiness, or because to trust one party may jeopardise my relationship with someone else. If, however, the other party generates confident positive expectations (i.e., is trustworthy) and the risk is manageable, but still the risk-taking act does not come, that suggests that ‘trust’ is not really present (Schoorman et al., 2007, p. 350). Finally, the whole process is, of course, influenced by the trustor's pre-disposition to trust, as per Mayer et al. (1995). 2. On this point, I once heard a professor, and an acknowledged expert on trust, argue that we can only trust people we know personally; we cannot be said to ‘trust’ a stranger. My train driver and surgeon scenarios cast doubt on this argument; in both cases, we have enough evidence available for their ability, benevolence and integrity (and predictability) to develop ‘confident positive expectations’. For most of us getting onto a train or even an operating table, putting our lives in the hands of an unknown driver or surgeon, is a risk-taking act we are prepared to make. One might argue that in both cases, there is no choice, so it's not really ‘trust’, but this is not the case for the train as there are other transport options. Plus, if you truly had no trust whatsoever in the driver, the journey would be spent paralysed with terror. The lack of choice may be so in life-threatening surgical scenarios, but in many countries policy dictates that an informed consensual choice be made available to patients. Properly examined, I'd expect most such choices to be trust-based rather than mere hope. 3. One possible example that comes to mind is online purchasing from individual fellow citizens, such as on eBay. We do not know the seller but we can be reasonably confident in them because of the reliability of eBay itself and its policies governing the transactions that it facilitates. But I suspect that most of us choose to trust sellers because of their reputation rating and their marketplace communications. Tellingly for this argument, these are both within the seller's control, and are not institutional in origin.