Emotions, Everyday Life and Sociology

Michael Hviid Jacobsen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367897291
• eBook ISBN: 9781351801508
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume explores the emotions that are intricately woven into the texture of everyday life and experience. A contribution to the literature on the sociology of emotions, it focuses on the role of emotions as being integral to daily life, broadening our understanding by examining both 'core' emotions and those that are often overlooked or omitted from more conventional studies. Bringing together theoretical and empirical studies from scholars across a range of subjects, including sociology, psychology, cultural studies, history, politics and cognitive science, this international collection centres on the 'everyday-ness' of emotional experience.

1 Trust

What is it and why do we need it?

Paul R. Ward

Introduction

Part of me communicating to you, through writing this chapter, involves trust. You have not met me, you will probably have very little, if any, knowledge about me. I have not worked with you in order to develop a sense of trust. However, I will present all sorts of arguments throughout this chapter, often from literature sources that you may not know. I will draw on my personal experiences as a ‘person in the world’, and I will draw on numerous research studies that I have undertaken. As I would say to all the students that I have taught and worked with in research, I would expect you to impose ‘critical doubt’ when reading my work, and the work of all others. In other words, you can make a decision about whether (or not) to trust me. The times when we were simply (some say blindly) expected to trust people because they were in positions of power has gone. This is not to say that people in power should not be trusted, but simply that people are expected to question such authority, access other sources of information and perform the role of the ‘informed citizen’. It is not very long ago that school teachers were not questioned by students or parents, University professors held almost unquestioned status, doctors told patients what to do (and they did it without questioning) and religious leaders were looked upon for answers. Across many countries and cultures, this unquestioning of power has been somewhat eroded, and in some cases broken (Ward et al. 2016; Ward, Mamerow et al. 2014).

When I go to my doctor, either for myself or my children, I am engaged in a very different relationship than I know my parents were at my age. Rather than simply telling me what to do, my doctor provides potential alternatives, talks about different ways of dealing with the issue at hand, opens up to uncertainties and conflicting medical information. Although the literature on doctor-patient relationships shows this shift to be generalizable (Barry et al. 2001; Bissell et al. 2004), my personal experiences may also reflect my socio-demographic characteristics – a white, male, middle-class, middle-aged Professor. It may well be that the doctor behaves in this particular way because he expects me to want him to behave like that – Niklas Luhmann calls this the ‘expectation of expectations’ (Luhmann 1995). Nevertheless, there has been a discernible shift in doctor-patient relationships – Anthony Giddens argues that in so-called pre-modern times, doctors expected patients to simply ‘trust’ them and patients reciprocated by trusting them (Giddens 1990, 1994). The power and expertise resided with the doctor – they had been to medical school, they had earned their place in one of the Colleges, they were employed by some type of medical organisation (depending on country of practice) and thus they had the expertise to diagnose and treat illness. The medical system has recently started to put the patient (aka client, consumer, sometimes even human) at the centre of the encounter. This recognises that patients have some expertise in their own bodies, their illnesses, their therapeutic regimen and can therefore contribute to a discussion or negotiation with their doctor. The patient-centred movement also recognises a cultural shift, variously conceptualised as neoliberalism, individualism and/or freedom of the subject (Kaufman 2010; Navarro 2007). Whichever terms are used, they generally include elements of increased individual responsibility, decreased responsibility of the State for things regarded as ‘individual’ or family issues, and the centrality of choice. So, faced with a particular problem, individuals have somewhat of a moral imperative to search around for information (Google and Facebook seem to be fairly well used for this search) in order to make a choice (and trust or not), potentially utilising the previously defined ‘experts’ (doctors, teachers, professors, priests) as one of the information sources required in order to make their decision. In fact, it has been argued that doctors have shifted from a position of ‘legislator’ to ‘negotiator’ or even ‘mediator’ (Scambler and Britten 2001). You may be asking, ‘what does this have to do with trust’?

The key purpose of this chapter is to outline why trust is a key emotion and social process in contemporary society. I firstly outline the ‘need’ for trust – why can’t we just make decisions and get on with them? Why do we need to invest trust in other people? I then go on to provide a conceptual map of trust – what is it and what are the various concepts that surround it? Finally, I outline the emerging literature on trust as an emotion and in so doing, paint a broad-brush picture of the sociology of the emotions, within which trust sits. Within and throughout the chapter, I use lots over everyday examples to illustrate the often theoretically dense ideas and also provide examples from my diverse research on the sociology of trust, including trust in food systems (Henderson et al. 2012; Ward et al. 2012), colorectal cancer screening (Ward et al. 2015b; Ward et al. 2015a), health services (Attwell et al. 2017; Gidman et al. 2012; Januraga et al. 2014; Ward and Coates 2006) and broader institutions of government (Meyer et al. 2012c; Ward et al. 2014; Ward et al. 2016).

Definition and conceptualisation of trust

Trust has been variously defined and conceptualised elsewhere (Gambetta 1988; Gilson 2003; Gilson et al. 2005; Gilson 2006; Luhmann 1988; Misztal 1996, 2001; Mollering 2001), which creates a problem in/of itself. This problem is similar to the notion of ‘emotions’, which similarly almost defy definition. So, in this chapter, I have a double whammy – both trust and emotions have multiple and varied meanings within both academic literature and lay parlance.

Sociologists typically identify two types of trust: institutional and interpersonal trust. Interpersonal trust is regarded as an outcome of interpersonal interactions that people can learn in order to make decisions about future interactions (an individual uses past experiences of similar interactions to predict whether or not to trust someone in the future) (Giddens 1990; Luhmann 1988; Mollering 2006) and institutional trust is ‘the expected utility of institutions performing satisfactorily’ (Mishler and Rose 2001:31). In terms of defining overall trust, I use the definition by Jack M. Barbalet (2011) because it links trust and emotions, ‘trust is a means of overcoming the absence of evidence concerning the future behaviour of a partner or partners in cooperative activity’ (Barbalet 2011: 41). There are all sorts of uncertainties and contingencies built into the decision to trust (or not), and Barbalet argues that trust is ultimately based on cooperation – if we trust, we believe that the other person will do their best for us, and we will cooperate in a social relationship on that basis. A positive outcome is linked to other positive emotions in addition to trust. For Barbalet, trusting involves both emotional apprehension and emotional engagement, because the outcome cannot be known when trust is ‘given’, linking trust to various other emotions such as hope, confidence, obligation and dependence (Brown 2011; Meyer and Ward 2013; Ward et al. 2015a).

One of the first hallmarks of trust is its embeddedness in social relationships, and it can either make or break them. It has been argued that trust is both the glue that holds social relationships together but also the lubricant that helps social relationships to flourish (Mollering 2001, 2006). Most of social life could not happen without trust – as humans, we cannot personally perform every function ourselves, and therefore we need other humans to perform those functions for us. I cannot grow all of the vegetables my family eats, and therefore I need to purchase them. In making a purchase from a particular place, I am ultimately trusting them, and all of the links in the chain that got the vegetables from the farmer. If those vegetables are sold as certified organic, or pesticide free, or non-genetically modified, then I need to be able to trust that what I purchase and then cook can be trusted. In doing that, I am not trusting the vegetable per se, but I am trusting the farmers to grow organically, the organisation performing organic certification to test and check before and after certification, and the place of purchase (supermarket, farmers market, online store, etc.) to keep them in appropriate conditions. This example shows the inter-related issues of interpersonal trust and institutional trust. My own research on trust in food systems highlights the inter-related nature of trust in farmers (Henderson et al. 2011), local food systems (Meyer et al. 2012b), food certification (Nath 2013), supermarkets (Julie Henderson et al. 2012), the media (Ward et al. 2012) and food regulation (Henderson et al. 2013) in decisions about what/who to trust, and therefore what to eat. Similarly, my research on trust in colorectal cancer (CRC) screening (Ward et al. 2015b; Ward et al. 2015a) highlighted the nuances and complexities involved in the trustworthiness of the CRC screening program in Australia, which included trust considerations of different levels: interpersonal relationships with people perceived as linked to the CRC screening program (e.g. GP, Aboriginal Health Worker), local area issues that impacted on the programme (e.g. trustworthiness of postal system or local health centre) and national political issues (e.g. trustworthiness of the government and particular politicians seen to ‘represent’ the government).

Interpersonal and institutional trust depend on one another. For example, you may see a doctor for the first time, you do not know them personally (not your usual doctor) and therefore it is very difficult to have inter-personal trust (built on a history of interactions, not breaking trust over time, reciprocity, etc.). This was the case in some of my earlier research whereby people living in a marginalised, deprived community in the United Kingdom could not get regular GPs and therefore consulted with locum GPs with whom they could not develop a longer-term trusting relationship (Ward and Coates 2006). This lack of trust meant that they were ambivalent about treatment recommendations and less likely to follow the advice of the locum GPs. However, you may trust the various systems that have trained the doctor and continue to regulate their skills and register them. In this way, trust in the education system to train them, the medical system to build their skills and give them experience, the political system to make sure there is regulatory and professional surveillance to keep a check on their current skills and practice and the moral system to make them know right from wrong. Trust in these various systems or institutions may help you to overcome the lack of interpersonal trust that you have in the individual doctor. This was the case in my research on trust in public and private hospitals in Australia (Ward et al. 2015c). Patients in public hospitals had no choice in their hospital and/or doctor, since they had been referred (often from their general practitioner) and saw whichever doctor was on duty at that time. The patients in public hospitals often did not know their doctor and in order to place their trust, patients stated that doctors in public hospitals would try to ‘do their best’, thereby being trustworthy. This level of trust goes back to the definition of trust which is about trusting someone because you think they will do their best for you and assuming they will not try to do harm – I regard this as a kind of ‘resigned trust’.

Institutional trust is also linked to functional trust. Imagine consulting a doctor with a pretty bad bedside manner – not good interpersonal skills, not very patient-focussed, quite domineering and rather patronising. Due to the institutional trust, you may ‘trust’ the doctor to perform a medical procedure, even without necessarily having interpersonal trust. However, you are trusting the doctor to perform specific functions prescribed by their role in that context. You may not trust them to be a friend, you may not trust them to help you with your emotional health. You may trust a butcher (skilled in butchering animals) to produce good cuts of meat, but not necessarily perform surgery on you. My own research on trust in different public health services found that it is possible to have trust in one level but not necessarily the other. For example, in my study of trust in hospitals, patients in public hospitals trusted the individual doctors but not necessarily the government funding the hospitals (Ward et al. 2015c). In the study of trust in CRC screening, some cultural groups trusted and some distrusted the government funding the screening, and some groups trusted and others distrusted the healthcare professionals involved in the screening (Ward et al. 2015b; Ward et al. 2015a). In terms of childhood vaccinations, we found parents may trust some types of healthcare professionals but not the pharmaceutical industry or even ‘science’ as an institution (Attwell et al. 2017).

An example more befitting this book relates to love, an emotion which has many meanings in different contexts, and which has been dealt with admirably elsewhere (Burkitt 2014; Hochschild 1979, 1998; Wouters 1998). For a person to ‘give’ their love to another, it would be appropriate in my eyes for them to expect certain social and emotional things in response. The detail of these would be negotiated and agreed between the people involved, but the ‘emotional contract’ set up between them would involve an expectation of that not being broken. Ultimately, this involves trust – the expectation from the truster, that the trustee will do the things they agreed to do. These ‘things’ could be practical, social, emotional and/or spiritual, but the truster will expect that whatever was agreed will be actioned. One such ‘thing’ may be that neither person has sexual relations with another – that by declaring their love for each other which may involve co-habiting, financial relations, children, ideas about a future – an expectation is developed and agreed to about monogamy. The two people are unlikely to be within each other’s company 24 hours a day, and therefore they need to trust each other. However, if one or both of the people display infidelity, this would likely lead to a break in trust and will probably impact the conditions required for trust in the future. I use these examples to show both the different issues that might be involved in deciding whether someone or something is trustworthy, and the different implications (or risks) of making a decision to trust.

The notion of risk has similarly shared a long history in sociology and psychology, again having varying definitions and conceptual landscapes (Beck 1992, 2005, 2009; Crawford 2004; Douglas 1992; Luhmann 2005; Slovic 2010; Slovic et al. 2004; Taylor-Gooby and Zinn 2006). I do not plan to cover this terrain here. The importance of talking about risk is that it goes hand-in-hand with trust. The conditions underpinning and implications of trust hinge on the risk involved in the decision. For example, making a decision on whether to buy apples from a supermarket or a farmer’s market will involve considerations of trust (in addition to cost, location, quality, availability, etc.), but for me the risk is not huge. I may buy them from the supermarket and find out I don’t like them. I may then buy some from the farmer’s market and like them much better. I initially put my trust in the supermarket, but they did not deliver on taste (my primary motive when choosing food), so my trust in other fruits and vegetables from the supermarket might be questioned, whereas my trust in farmer’s markets might be heightened. Having said this, the risk to me of initially trusting the supermarket was pretty small – I spent some time and money buying the apples, but not a great deal. Compare this with a decision about which surgeon you trust to perform heart surgery (Meyer et al. 2012a; Meyer and Ward 2013). In countries and healthcare systems where patients have some choice in their surgeon, the risk of making the ‘wrong choice’ is far greater than buying apples. In making a ‘loving’ commitment and choosing to trust a partner, the risks are very different than with the surgeon. A surgeon not doing their job properly might lead to severe medical and health problems, a partner displaying infidelity may lead to social, emotional and financial problems. These should not be compared on the basis of ‘which one would be worse’, simply that the decision to trust involves risk, and heightened risks lead to trust being even more important.

Part of the information gathering process used to make a decision on trustworthiness relates to our socialised expectations of people and things. We are more likely to trust a person or thing if they fit with what we ‘expect’ them to look and act like. For example, we have historically and culturally defined expectations of doctors, and if they do not look or act as we expect, this may well impact our likelihood of trusting them. Giddens argues that there are social/cultural norms underpinning the decision to trust (outside of actual experience), often based on a stylised idea of the institution (Govier 1998). Indeed, Francis Fukuyama (1996:153) argues that ‘trust arises when a community shares a set of moral values in such a way as to create expectations of regular and honest behaviour’. I acknowledge that this may reflect stereotypes that serve to reinforce current i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword and acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• Introduction: Emotions, Emotions, Everywhere Emotions!
• 1. Trust: What is it and why do we need it?
• 2. Loyalty: The emotion of future expectation, felt now, based on the past
• 3. Dignity: An exploration of dignity’s role and meaning in daily life
• 4. Compassion: Conflicted social feeling and the calling to care
• 5. Courage: It’s not all about overcoming fear
• 6. Excitement: Risk and authentic emotion
• 7. Embarrassment: Experiencing awkward self-awareness in everyday life
• 8. Shyness: Self-consciously perceived relative social incompetence
• 9. Envy: Hostility towards superiors
• 10. Guilt: What’s so good about feeling bad about yourself ?
• 11. Anger: An emotion of intent and of desire for change in relationships
• 12. Grief: The painfulness of permanent human absence
• 13. Boredom: Emptiness in the modern world
• 14. Laziness: From medieval sin to late modern social pathology
• Index