Trust (social sciences)

Trust is the belief in the good character of one party, presumed to seek to fulfil policies, ethical codes, law and their previous promises.

Society
In the social sciences, the subtleties of trust are a subject of passionate debate. In sociology (and psychology) the degree to which one party trusts another is a measure of belief in the benevolence and competence of the other party. A failure in trust will be forgiven more easily if it is interpreted as a failure of competence rather than a lack of benevolence.

From this perspective, trust is an internal state, and cannot be measured. Only confidence, which is expressed as behavior, can be measured. Trust may be considered a moral choice. In this case, machine-human trust is meaningless, because computers have no moral sense. Any trust in a device under this characterization is computer-mediated trust of the user of the machine in the designer and creator of the device. Francis Fukuyama and Tyler are academics who advocate this conception of trust – as moral and not directly observable.

A second perspective in social theory comes from the classic Foundations of Social Theory by James S. Coleman. Coleman offers a four part definition:

1. Placement of trust allows actions that otherwise are not possible.

2. If the person in whom trust is placed (trustee) is trustworthy, then the trustor will be better off than if he or she had not trusted. Conversely, if the trustee is not trustworthy, then the trustor will be worse off than if he or she had not trusted.

3. Trust is an action that involves the voluntary placement of resources (physical, financial, intellectual, or temporal) at the disposal of the trustee with no real commitment from the trustee.

4. A time lag exists between the extension of trust and the result of the trusting behavior.

The strength of Coleman's definition is that it allows for discussion of trust behavior. These discussions have been particularly useful in reasoning about human-computer trust, and trust behaviors. Modern scholars trying to bring together issues of trusted systems, computer security, trust and technology include Jeroen van den Hoven, Helen Nissenbaum, Deborah Johnson and Jean Camp. Fukuyama might call their work studies of confidence, not trust.

A critical element in studies of trust behavior is power. One who is in a position of dependence cannot be said to trust another in a moral sense, but can be defined as trusting another in the most strict behavioral sense. Trusting another party when one is compelled to do so is sometimes called reliance, to indicate that the belief in benevolence and competence may be absent, while the behaviors are present. Others refer only to coercion.

Coleman's definition does not account for the distinction between trust(worthiness) as a moral attribute and trustworthiness as mere reliability. It is Annette Baier (Ethics, 1987) who characterize contexts of trust as structures of interaction in which moral obligations act upon the trustees.

The substantive conflict in the social sciences is if trust is entirely internal, and only confidence is observable, or if trust behaviors can meaningful measure trust in the absence of coercion.

Social institutions, economies, and communities require trust to function. Therefore trust and altruism are areas of study for economists, because their existence is difficult to address is strict rational economics.

Psychology
In psychology, it 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, institutions (e.g. government agencies) and objects such as machines.

Research has been done on the notion of trust and its social implications:
 * Barbara Misztal in her book 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 describes four stages of sexual trust:

Trust and power intuitively might seem contrasting concepts, but sometimes they overlap; see Stockholm syndrome and charismatic authority.

Improving and developing trust between people is pursued; for instance in relationship counseling and team building. Trust is studied by economists.