Dispositional trust theories explain only variation in risk-taking, not trust itself

Evidence

Most of the discussion of a disposition to trust (for example, Rotter 1980) could easily be read as supposing that people can be relatively optimistic about others generally, perhaps for reasons of early experience, as discussed in chapter 5. If this is the meaning of trust as dispositional, then it is not generally a theory of trust but merely an explanation of why some take risks more readily than others do or why some read the risks as less serious than others do. Hence the dispositional view is about marginal variations in trusting in the face of whatever evidence of trustworthiness is available. The view that trust is purely a disposition and that it is therefore unrelated in any specific instance to the object of the trust (trusting B to do X) is surely irrelevant to the experience of trust for most of us most of the time— — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 874

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Distinguishes dispositional trust from relational/cognitive trust, a key definitional boundary Hardin draws.

Related

• Dispositional optimism explains risk tolerance, not trust itself (similarity 0.94)
• Trust belongs to belief states, while risk-taking is the separable action. (similarity 0.86)
• Trust reduces to knowledge while trustworthiness is motivational (similarity 0.85)
• Trustworthiness can hold universally while trust cannot rationally (similarity 0.85)
• Trust is rational expectation about the trusted party’s self-interest (similarity 0.85)
• Readiness to trust itself varies and is not a fixed precondition (similarity 0.85)
• Trust is a degree of expected probability, not a separate decision layered onto risk. (similarity 0.84)
• Apparent trust differences are often just differential risk-taking and learning speed (similarity 0.84)
• Trust is a matter of knowledge and belief, not of choice or action. (similarity 0.83)
• Trust, though biologically inherited in its optimism, stays subject to correction by experience. (similarity 0.83)
• Trust is wrongly conflated with promise-keeping and entrusting (similarity 0.83)
• Trust cannot be adopted at will without changed circumstances (similarity 0.83)
• Trust requires controlling one’s own readiness to accept risk (similarity 0.83)
• Trust is not reducible to emotion the way joy might be (similarity 0.83)
• Trust is a cognitive state of belief, not an action or purpose (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Readiness to trust itself varies and is not a fixed precondition #expands (0.82) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 298