A few highly trustworthy people can upshift an entire system’s baseline
Evidence
Finally, note that for a real-world society in which there must be substantial variance on most social, intentional, cognitive, and other such measures, average levels of anything may be far less important than actual distributions, especially if individuals and societies have ways of selecting on the relevant dimension to found social structures on differences in trustworthiness. So, for example, if we are in a society that is hierarchically organized for various purposes, it may often be more important that the most competent or trustworthy people be in certain hierarchical roles than that people of average competence or trustworthiness be in those roles. Even in a strictly egalitarian context it may be more important that there be some highly trustworthy individuals in the system than that everyone be close to the average in trustworthiness. For example, in a market one exceptionally trustworthy dealer may force others to be more trustworthy in order to stay in competition, as John Mueller (1999, 79–80) argues for the case of John Wanamaker and the modern department store. On the other hand, in certain contexts, in a society in which personal relationships are generally not deviously exploitative, one can take a lot for granted on first meeting a new associate. Con artists, sexual exploiters, and many others have a field of play only because the background standards and expectations of behavior are relatively high. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 871
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- DEEPTHINKING: A dense insight pairing two mechanisms at once: trustworthy outliers discipline a market, while high background standards enable exploitation — the same distribution cuts both ways.
- XREF: Connects to reader’s Hardin framework: variance in trustworthiness is precisely what selection mechanisms like the doctor’s wife in Saramago exploit — one outlier restores order.