Divergent trust judgments refute trait-based accounts of trust.

Evidence

Against the view that trust inherently turns on such independent characteristics of the trusted, note that I might trust you though others do not. Somehow, something other than your characteristics must be in play. Most people in their professional lives can probably count some of their colleagues as untrustworthy and others as trustworthy. They might even be able to do this with fine gradations, but let us simplify to the two extreme types. Often, those you trust tend to trust one another, and those you distrust tend also to be distrusted by those you trust. Yet many of those you distrust may trust one another. Such patterns make sense if trusting is a matter of shared interests that make for the reliability of the trusted. They do not fit an account of trust as based on bald characteristics of the trusted. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 388

Categorization

• XREF: The pattern of mutual-trust clustering mirrors the clique structures the reader cares about — within-group trust without cross-group trust, echoing Saramago’s nested groups.