Trust in Modern Societies

The Search for the Bases of Social Order

Barbara Misztal

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780745667973
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

This is one of the first systematic discussions of the nature of trust as a means of social cohesion, discussing the works of leading social theorists on the issue of social solidarity.

1

Defining Trust

What is trust?

Trustworthiness, the capacity to commit oneself to fulfilling the legitimate expectations of others, is both the constitutive virtue of, and the key causal precondition for the existence of, any society.

Dunn 1984a: 287

Trust is a highly problematic but recurrent feature of social relationships. Social theories tend to conceive of trust by pointing to the range of benefits that trust provides. For instance, it is seen as essential for stable relationships, vital for the maintenance of cooperation, fundamental for any exchange and necessary for even the most routine of everyday interactions. ‘Without trust only very simple forms of human cooperation which can be transacted on the spot are possible, and even individual action is much too sensitive to disruption to be capable of being planned, without trust, beyond the immediately assured moment’ (Luhmann 1979: 88).

It is argued that trust, understood often in a very vague and unsystematic way, shapes all aspects of human life. Whatever matters to human beings, says Bok, ‘trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives.… When it is damaged the community as a whole suffers; and when it is destroyed, societies falter and collapse’ (1979: 31 and 26–7). Also Hirsch (1977) sees trust as a public good which is necessary for the successful running of the economy. Trust is also essential for facilitating effective problem solving, because ‘it encourages the exchange of relevant information and determines whether team members are willing to allow others to influence their decisions and actions’ (Carnevale and Wechsler 1992: 471). The role of trust in the constitution and maintenance of systems of empirical knowledge is connected with its property as ‘the great civility’, which is ‘granting the conditions in which others can colonize our minds and expecting the conditions which allow us to colonize theirs’ (Shapin 1994: 36).

Furthermore, since autonomy requires trustworthiness in social communication, trust is also a prerequisite for the realization of our essential nature and the formulation of self-identity. Habermas (1984), for example, views the ability of communicative action to negotiate shared understanding, which in turn coordinates interaction, as based on the three validity claims – truth, rightness and sincerity. His communicative ethics presupposes that ‘communicating actors always infer that their exchange speech acts satisfy a condition of mutual trust. Communication can continue undisturbed if speakers suppose that they already act in accordance with a sincerity rule’ (Keane 1984: 159). Thus, communication, based on mutual trust, coordinates social and political interaction. A similar perspective is adopted by Bok when she notes that ‘[a] society whose members are unable to distinguish truthful messages from deceptive ones, would collapse’ (1979: 18). Following the Tocquevillian tradition, interpersonal trust is also seen as fostering democratic values and as the basis for sustaining republican society or civic community (Putnam 1993). An emphasis on trust as an essential element of our mutual welfare and more broadly as an aspect of a worthwhile life is indeed very common in political science and sociological literature. So, if without trust life would not be possible, what is trust?

The omnipresence of trust and its problematic and multiple meanings have resulted in a unimpressive record on the part of the social sciences in grasping its essence (Dunn 1993). Different disciplines in social science have attempted to study it, or at least register its presence, but without a great deal of effort being devoted to its conceptualization. A survey of the literature on trust in 1985 concludes that ‘the social science research on trust has produced a good deal of conceptual confusion regarding the meaning of trust and its place in social life’ (Lewis and Weigert 1985: 975). Even though trust has received considerable attention in recent years, the confusion continues with an increased mixture of approaches and perspectives.

In unravelling this conceptual complexity our concern will be limited to the social scientist’s perspective. Social science enquiries are designed with an explanatory purpose in mind, and their aim is to test a specific empirical context and the consequences of a given phenomenon. This means that we will not be interested in moral dilemmas since these are topics specific to normative philosophy. Similarly, trust as a psychological trait of personality, as studied by experimental psychologists in laboratory settings, is not part of our immediate interest. Akin to our approach are the volumes of research on trust conducted by political scientists, interested in factors influencing social confidence in political systems and their leaders. Sociologists themselves have seldom studied or measured trust, although there have been some studies which have measured ‘confidence’ in public opinion surveys.

The sociological literature conceptualizes trust as either the property of individuals, the property of social relationships or the property of the social system explained with attention to behaviour based on actions and orientations at the individual level. The first approach puts emphasis on feelings, emotions and individual values. Trust is seen as a function of individual personality variables (Deutsch 1958; Cole 1973; Wolfe 1976). In this socio-psychological work trust is confused with or closely related to cooperative mentality, honesty, loyalty, sincerity, hope or altruism. These attempts to develop a personality theory of trust are far too simplistic in their lack of attention to the social context (one may trust in some circumstances, not in others, and so on). Methodologically they are also unacceptable because in these studies trust is treated ‘in ways which have reductionistic consequences’ (Lewis and Weigert 1985: 975).

In the second approach, trust is seen more as a collective attribute, and is thus applicable to the institutional fabric of society. In this way, for example, Fordism as a mode of production is described as a ‘low trust system’ (Fox 1974), while ‘flexible specialisation’ or a post-Fordist organization of manufacturing is labelled as a ‘trust dependent system’ (Sabel 1989; Hirst and Zetlin 1991). Trust is seen as a social resource that can be drawn upon in order to achieved certain organizational goals (Nachmias 1985).

The third approach sees trust as a valued public good, sustained by actions of members of a given society. It can be found, for instance, in Tocqueville’s classic description of the civic community as marked by a social fabric of trust and cooperation and reliant upon the activities of a public-spirited citizenry. Also Putnam’s (1993) search for an explanation of what ‘makes democracy work’ in northern Italy points to trust within community. He views trust as social capital, which is the essential condition for effective, responsive and representative institutions. A view of trust as an emergent property of the social system as much as a personal attribute allows this popular approach to apply trust as a valuable concept for overcoming the macro/micro distinction. In the same vein, Luhmann (1979) and Barber (1983), while starting with people’s expectations, view trust as a dimension of the social structure which ‘cannot be fully understood and studied exclusively on either the psychological level or on the institutional level, because it thoroughly permeates both’ (Lewis and Weigert 1985: 974). Seeing trust from this perspective makes it possible to show how building trust on the micro-level contributes to the more abstract trust on the macro-level (Luhmann 1988). Each positive contact with our local doctor, for example, may gradually increase our confidence in the medical system.

Following this perspective, it can be said that an adequate conceptualization of trust as a sociological notion, aimed at bridging the interpersonal and the systematic levels of analysis, should see trust as a social mechanism, that is, ‘a specific causal pattern that can be recognised after the event but rarely foreseen’ (Elster 1993: 13). Studying trust as a social mechanism involves explaining people’s actions by their motivations and beliefs. It raises three questions: firstly, what kind of motivations? secondly, beliefs about what? and lastly, what are the sources of these motivations and beliefs? Before addressing these questions, it will be helpful to examine the most common definitions of trust. The efficient way to grasp the most common connotations of the notion of trust is to analyse some basic definitions, rather than debating various attempts in sociological theory to identify its role and nature. Definitions of trust in sociological literature generally reflect the theoretical stands of the various authors, and as such they need to be discussed in the context of their respective theories (which will be our task in the following two chapters), while dictionary-type definitions show the most common properties of trust and illustrate an evolution of its meaning.

Trust has had many connotations. The oldest one relates this notion to faith or ‘the confidence in a supranatural Power on which man feels himself dependent’ (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Morgan 1912: 464). Trust of this kind is present in all religious beliefs since to trust God as the source of salvation is an essence of every religion. ‘Blessed is the man who trusts in Jaweh and whose confidence Jaweh is’, says the Old Testament. ‘In God We Trust’ is on the coins and notes of the United States. ‘Trust in God’ is the Islamic suicide bombers’ final message. Trust is seen here as in part an article of ‘faith’ to which is attributed a broader meaning, including trust and some cognitive elements of assessment of a given doctrine. In the idea of faith the emphasis falls on its cognitive aspects, yet faith is always an antithesis to understanding since it relies upon a vague and partial understanding of its object. Faith is not, however, a passive acceptance of the unknown; rather it is, as in Pascal’s view, a strategic decision to take a risk in the condition of uncertainty. In Roman languages, the term used for trust, fede (translated into English as faith) also implies non-rational and incalculable elements (Pagden 1988: 129). It carries with it an element of duty to keep faith as the foundation of social life. For Giddens (1990: 27), trust is a form of faith, in which ‘confidence vested in probable outcomes expresses a commitment to something rather than just a cognitive understanding’. This brings us to another concept closely connected with trust – namely, the notion of confidence.

The main definition of trust in the Oxford English Dictionary identifies trust as ‘confidence in or reliance on some quality or attributes of a person or thing, or the truth of a statement’. In this definition, trust to a large extent merges with the idea of confidence, which expresses a firm trust. Without going into the debate about the criteria for the distinction between trust and confidence (see the discussion of Luhmann’s concept of trust and Giddens’ understanding of the notion of trust in chapter 3), it can be accepted that trust is a matter of individual determination and involves choosing between alternatives (I decide to take a risk and trust my new colleague), while confidence is more habitual expectation (I am habitually confident that my milkman will deliver milk to the doorstep tomorrow). The main difference between trust and confidence is connected with the degree of certainty that we attach to our expectations. It is, of course, much easier to decide whether to have confidence or not in one’s milkman than to decide which people can be trusted to reciprocate friendly actions, since trust involves a difficult task of assessment of other people’s capacities for the action. Thus, anything that facilitates accurate judgement about whom to trust has an important social value. Indeed, it is precisely the existence of many forms of complex interdependence and the freedom of others that creates such an enormous demand for trust and makes it an interesting social phenomenon.

Further pursuing the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of trust, we discover that from an economic perspective trust is identified as ‘confidence in the ability and intention of a buyer to pay at a future time for goods supplied without present payment’. This definition points out that trust is an underlying feature of a specific exchange relationship. It is not a barter exchange, where face-to-face transaction takes place without any time delays. It is not a monetary market exchange, where buying and selling is based on common trust in money as the medium of transaction. This type of relationship can be described as a ‘credit’ type of exchange in which ‘trades trust each other’ (Anderlini and Sabourian 1992: 100). In this light, trust can be defined as ‘a set of expectations shared by those in an exchange’ (Zucker 1986: 54), and different types of exchange can be defined according to the level of trust present within the relationship.

Anthropological analyses, which tend to emphasize the normative standards that sustain exchange, show the importance of reciprocity as compelling obligations and prolonging partnerships (Shalins 1972). In his classic work The Gift, Mauss argues that the obligations to give, to receive and to return are not to be understood simply with respect to rational calculation. Gift giving is a form of non-immediate reciprocity where reward is neither discussed nor consciously calculated at the moment the offering is made. In the long run, however, one expects gifts to be reciprocated. Thus, in primitive and archaic societies, those societies based on gift-relationships, ‘there is no middle path; there is either trust or mistrust’ (Mauss 1970: 79). Modern, stratified and divided societies, Mauss argues, by definition are no longer reciprocal. This pessimistic perspective is, however, contradicted by some writers, who point to the importance of gift exchange in our complex, large-scale society (Timuss 1969; Zucker 1986; Davis 1992) or to the significant function of other forms of exchange not based on the expectation of profit, as, for example, exchange between parents and children or charity donations (Davis 1992).

Accepting a broad and non-rigid classification of various types of exchange fosters the image of people as having a complex repertoire of behaviour, allowing them to be market-wise in commerce, reciprocal with friends, generous with their children, and in some situations even altruistic. However, in which types of exchange does trust play an important role? It is certainly not in hostile takeovers, nor in burglary nor in extortion, to mention only some of Davis’ repertoires of exchange. Trust seems to play a significant role in any exchange where each partner has clear expectations of the other, and where there is a time lapse between the exchange of goods or services. As Mauss (1970: 34) notes: ‘Time has to pass before a counter-presentation can be made and this requires trust.’ Thus, only the type of exchange based on mutual expectations (obligations) and involving a time lapse is underpinned by trust as an instrument of social organization. Both credit and gift giving can be included in this category. There is, however, a third case of this type of exchange, which is more interesting to sociologists than to anthropologists – namely, cooperation.

Trust as cooperative exchange is a more complex phenomenon than gift giving because the relationships between cooperation and trust are less straightforward than those between trust and gift giving. Gift exchanges, although also based on trust (when you give gifts you trust to receive one in return and, moreover, you are trusted to consider the welfare and interests of the persons you are giving to – for example, a record of classical music would not be the best present for someone solely devoted to jazz), implicitly produce trust because ‘histories of such exchange are usually readily available to the partners and because expectations are often culturally given’ (Zucker 1986: 61). Cooperation is seen as a by-product of trust rather than a source of trust and, moreover, a lack of cooperation can be a result of other factors (such as lack of sufficient information) rather than an absence of trust. ‘Consequently, while cooperation and trust are intimately related in that the former is a central manifestation of the latter, the former cannot provide, for either the actor or the analyst, a simple redefinition of trust’ (Good 1988: 33). Despite this call for caution in identifying cooperation with trust, the definition of trust in the Blackwell Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought (W. Outhwaite and T. Bottomore, eds, 1993) implicitly connects these two concepts.

Trust is defined here as ‘the willingness of other agents to fulfil their contractual obligation that is crucial for cooperation’. Identifying trust on the basis of its complex relationships with cooperation stresses only one particular aspect of trust, which is attributed to the problem posed by cooperation and arising ‘whenever agents cannot monitor each other’s action’. However, to some degree all social situations are arenas of mutual monitoring (Goffman 1963a), and, moreover, the ‘reflexive monitoring’ of social action (Giddens 1984) is an essential factor in the subjective assessment of the probability of whether others will cooperate. Lewis and Weigert note the other reason for not restricting discussion of the concept of trust to the issue of cooperation. According to them, equating the concept of trust with cooperation is a ‘strictly behavioural interpretation of the concept of trust’, whose value lies in ‘operationalising trust as trusting (i.e., cooperative) choice of behaviour [rather] than in developing an adequate conceptualisation of trust’ (1985: 975). Also Dunn’s (1993) observation that trust as a passion can be enabling and also disruptive (trust, as love, is blind) challenges the view that identifies the importance of trust solely in terms of cooperative relationships. Generally, it can be said that cooperation is only one type of exchange based on mutual obligations, and that there are other types of exchange as well as other types of relationships in which trust plays an important role. For instance, trust as an expectation of stability of social context (one trusts that the train timetables will be the same tomorrow) refers to the predictable rather than to the cooperative character of social order.

What integrates all the above definitions of trust is their common emphasis on the importance of several properties of trust relationships. The main common characteristic of trust, using Webster’s Third New International Dictionary’s formulation, is its ‘dependence on something future or contingent; confident anticipation’. The trust features are thus derived from the contingency of social reality and they require a time lapse between one’s expectations and the other’s action. What makes trust so puzzling is that to trust involves more than believing; in fact, to trust is to believe despite uncertainty. Trust always involves an element of risk resulting from our inability to monitor others’ behaviour, from our inability to have a complete knowledge about other people’s motivations and, generally, from the contingency of social reality. Consequently, one’s behaviour is influenced by one’s beliefs about the likelihood of others behaving or not behaving in a certain way rather than solely by a cognitive understanding or by firm and certain calculation.

What kind of expectations and beliefs can we have about ‘something future’? This question brings us back to our conceptualization of trust as a social mechanism, which can be explained by people’s beliefs and motivations. We have posed three questions, asking about types, content and sources of motivation and beliefs. In what follows my objective will be to address these three questions. I will start with an analysis of the sources of motivation and beliefs. A sociological approach, which focuses on the way in which individuals and society interact, generally argues that social relations and interactions are the points of origin of motivations and beliefs. It has already been demonstrated by Garfinkel that trust and shared understanding are inherent in all social interactions. The production of trust motivations is similarly presented by Granovetter (1985) and Wolfe (1989). According to Granovetter (1985: 491), the main factors responsible for the production of trust in economic life are social relations and the obligations inherent in them. Wolfe argues that individuals create their moral rules – that is, mutual obligations – through the social interactions they experience with others. ‘We are not social because we are moral; we are moral because we live together with others and therefore need periodically to account for who we are. Morality matters because we have reputations to protect, cooperative tasks to carry out, legacies to leave, others to love and careers to follow’ (Wolfe 1989: 215). In this context, people’s mutual obligations towards one another are the fruit of the collective rewards of interaction.

By reconciling our needs with the needs of others in daily negotiations, organizing and reflecting on our relationships with others, we construct our expectations and our beliefs about others. Basing our assessment of what to do next on expectations that the actions of others will be constrained by their obligations towards us, helps us to account for the contingency and uncertain...