Trust

Category: Fields of research

Trust can be understood as the expectation or belief that a person (the trustor) holds that the intentional actions of others will lead to positive, or at least non-negative, outcomes for them. Trust may be divided into three main types of expectations.

The first type involves the expectation that another person will refrain from harmful behavior — for example, not causing physical or emotional harm, stealing, abandoning, lying, manipulating, or revealing confidential information. The second type refers to the expectation that another person will act positively toward us, such as by offering help, love, support, financial assistance, or care. The third type of trust concerns cooperation: the expectation that others are both willing and capable of fulfilling their responsibilities in order to achieve a mutually agreed outcome. In reality, people often place different levels of trust in different individuals across these three dimensions.

Social sciences also distinguish between generalized trust (or social trust) and particularized trust. Generalized trust refers to extending trust to a broad circle of unfamiliar people, whereas particularized trust depends on a specific relationship or situation. Generalized trust is considered a key element of well-functioning social environments and interactions because it helps reduce uncertainty and vulnerability. People need to feel confident that their everyday interactions will produce favorable outcomes. It is generally believed that higher levels of trust in social relations contribute to greater satisfaction and more effective cooperation among individuals.

Trust can also be categorized into “in-group” trust and “out-group” trust. In-group trust refers to the trust placed in members of one’s own group, which may range from small social units such as family members to broader communities defined by race, ethnicity, social class, or even national identity. Out-group trust, by contrast, refers to trust extended toward individuals who are perceived as belonging outside one’s own group.

Trust in Traditional Societies

In the book The Gift (1925), Marcel Mauss contends that, for primitive societies, the gift is a way to achieve peace, what Mauss calls "total prestation" and functions as a total contract. Total prestation, which creates a state of continuous contract, applies to everything, everyone, and at all times. The gift creates a relationship of economic and moral reciprocity. Primitive society is divided into groups of different interests, but similar forces, for which the only way to survive is to choose between conflict and withdrawal. This aspect of these societies is not visible precisely because the gift prevents conflicts. The native's rationalization of the symbolism and function of the gift is, in fact, the rationalization of the deeper need to establish reciprocal relations, due to the danger of war. The need to reciprocate, which is ingrained in the spirit of the gift, reduces the animosity that exists between groups. Refusal to give or receive a gift is, in fact, a refusal to establish an alliance and fellowship. In primitive societies, there is often no middle ground; that is, either a relationship of full trust or complete distrust will be established. Giving and receiving gifts is, at the same time, an economic, religious, and legal relationship between the two parties. Obligations, which arise from these relations, refer to the receiving, but also the obligatory return of gifts.

Economy and Trust

Market exchange and trust are closely interconnected: market interactions help create trust, while trust, in turn, facilitates economic exchange. When trust is absent, economic risk increases, and opportunistic behavior among buyers and sellers becomes more common, limiting the scope of market transactions. A lack of trust between producers and suppliers has often been identified as a reason for the development of large, vertically integrated firms. To ensure reliability in markets, societies rely on legal institutions that protect property rights and enforce contracts, as well as professional organizations that monitor unethical behavior and sanction violations of trust. Even cartels and business trusts can be seen as outcomes of trust relations among competing firms.

Kenneth Arrow, in The Limits of Organization (1974), argues that low levels of mutual trust create significant economic losses and weaken the effective functioning of political systems that depend on collective action. However, trust cannot be created instantly and is difficult to sustain, even in close relationships. In a globalized world, social and economic interactions increasingly extend beyond face-to-face contact through networks based on business, travel, and digital communication. Trust reduces transaction costs, improves efficiency, and contributes to higher productivity. According to Arrow, societies with low levels of trust tend to be less economically developed, highlighting trust’s essential role in producing public goods and supporting economic growth.

In Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995), Francis Fukuyama studies the cultural foundations of economic success, arguing that trust is a key precondition for prosperity. He defines liberal democracy as a system that protects basic rights and is based on consent through free and fair elections, but emphasizes that political structures alone are not enough—social cohesion matters just as much. Fukuyama argues that trust promotes cooperation, reduces the need for costly regulation, and enables complex economic organization. While cooperation can exist without trust, he maintains that high levels of trust make large-scale, efficient collaboration much easier, especially in modern economies where most activity occurs within organizations rather than through individuals. This trust stems from shared moral values and social norms, which he calls “social capital,” and which are not simply the result of rational calculation.

A central part of the book is his distinction between “high-trust” and “low-trust” societies. High-trust countries, such as the United States, Germany, and Japan, have strong civil societies with many voluntary associations that exist between the family and the state. These societies are better able to build large, flexible corporations and sustain economic growth. In contrast, low-trust societies like China, France, and Italy rely heavily on family ties or state structures, with fewer intermediary institutions. This limits their ability to develop large-scale enterprises, as economic activity tends to remain confined to small, family-run businesses. Fukuyama also challenges the idea of a unified model of Asian economic success, highlighting differences between countries like Japan and China. He argues that weak trust beyond family networks may hinder China’s long-term growth, especially without stable legal institutions. Overall, Fukuyama concludes that economic success depends not only on markets and technology but also on fragile cultural factors like trust, warning that declines in social capital—even in advanced democracies—could undermine prosperity.

Trust and Democracy

In Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000), Robert D. Putnam explores the concept of social capital and its decline in the United States. He defines social capital as the networks, norms of reciprocity, and trust that arise from social connections. Like other forms of capital, it can grow or diminish over time. Putnam argues that social capital benefits both individuals and society. Individuals with strong social ties tend to be happier and have better access to opportunities, such as employment. At the societal level, dense social networks foster cooperation, trust, and mutual obligation. In smaller or tightly knit communities, people act generously with the expectation of reciprocity, building reputations and reinforcing trust. In larger societies, this dynamic evolves into what Putnam calls “generalized reciprocity,” where individuals act with consideration for others without expecting direct returns. Such trust-based systems make societies more efficient and cohesive and give support for democracy, cooperation, and economic development. Trust is a key element, not only between individuals but also between citizens and government. High levels of political trust support effective democracy, while widespread distrust can weaken social cohesion and institutional stability. Putnam argues that surveys show a significant drop in public trust and changes in everyday behavior reflecting reduced social cohesion. This erosion of both formal and informal connections has weakened trust and norms of reciprocity, and has contributed to a range of social problems, including increased crime, political alienation, reduced life satisfaction, and weakened community bonds.

Theoretical Approaches to Trust

Theoretically, trust is studied from two perspectives: socio-psychological – trust is a characteristic of individuals, and institutional – trust is a product of social relationships and social systems. The socio-psychological perspective emphasizes emotions, values, and interpersonal familiarity, viewing familiarity as the primary mechanism through which trust develops. In contrast, the institutional perspective regards trust as an important public good — a social resource that extends beyond close or familiar groups and can also be generalized to strangers.

Anthony Giddens developed his approach to modernity in The Consequences of Modernity (1990). He believes that at the end of the seventeenth century, there was a sharp discontinuity with the traditional social order. In the modern age, there is a temporal and spatial separation of social life because interpersonal interactions cease to be limited only by the physical closeness of individuals, and social relations begin to act at a distance. This development changes trust relations as people start to trust abstract impersonal principles, which, as Giddens argues, brings ‘ontological security’ in society.

In Cooperation Without Trust (2005), Karen Cook discusses how trust between actors affects the "power-dependence relations" (Richard Emerson) that exist between them. She believes that the relations of social exchange (in marriage, at work, or in friendly relations) contain mutual dependence, which can be defined as a relationship of "encapsulated interest". The notion of encapsulated interests refers to the trust that one actor (individual or collective) places in another actor because he (or she or they) believes that the other actor accepts the interests of the first actor and unites those interests with his own interests. Cook believes that if there is unequal power in a relationship, it is difficult to develop trust because the relative power of the actors will affect the way they experience the relationship. This theoretical approach to the relationship of power and trust can be applied to individuals, as well as to relations between organizations or between states.

In his books Individual Interests and Collective Action (1986) and Foundations of Social Theory (1990b), James Coleman applies the rational choice theory to the behavior of individual actors. Coleman starts from elementary actions and relationships in order to build a macro theory. Actors have interests, and they control some of the resources they use to pursue those interests. Some resources and events, however, are completely under someone else's control. To achieve interests, actors exchange control over resources and events that are less important to them, to gain control over things that are more important to them. At the middle level, which takes place between the activities of individual actors and macro structures, some structures mediate individual activities, the most important of which are: the system of authority, the system of trust, networks, norms, and organizations.

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