Communal trustworthiness can seed willingness to trust in wider society

Evidence

Incidentally, the claim of Adam Seligman (1997) and Niklas Luhmann (1980) that trust is a modern phenomenon may be correct if turned into a claim that it arises in relatively large communities in which we must rely on particularized networks and need not arise in small communities in which norms of cooperativeness handle the problems that trust relationships might have handled. The transition from smaller communities to relatively urban communities has proceeded further in many societies than in others, and national differences in the vocabulary of trust may correlate with the differential development. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 823

Categorization

• XREF: Central to the reader’s integration: this is the precise mechanism that Blindness illustrates in reverse — removing sight (monitoring) collapses the small-community dynamics; and it directly engages Luhmann’s modern-trust thesis. — connects to: Relying on collective trustworthiness is a collective, not merely individual, problem.; Optimism about trust is rewarded only in relatively trustworthy social conditions — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 545; Hostile larger societies drive stronger localized trust enclaves (+11 more)
• QUESTION: The vocabulary claim — national differences in words for trust correlating with urbanization — is intriguing and under-supported; worth chasing the Seligman and Luhmann originals.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 823

Broader Connections

• Trust extends kin-group loyalty outward to the whole society #expands (0.85)