Even parties who trust personally still adopt contracts.

Evidence

Research findings suggest that transacting parties-even sizable business firmsprefer personalized over contractual control (Macaulay 1963). Still, the long history and popularity of prenuptial agreements and wills (Barber 1983, pp. 30, 40-43) suggest that contract plays a role even in transactions most securely embedded in structures of social relations. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 45

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with the ‘Grafting & Growth’ article’s theme of formal structures layered over organic relationships — contracts as grafts onto social trust. — connects to: Institutional and legal constraints give people strong external incentives to be trustworthy; Agreements stay enforceable through the shadow of future bargains — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 118; Trustworthiness enforced only by contract threats is not genuine trust
• CANDY: Prenuptial agreements as the proof that even the most trust-saturated bond gets formalized — a light, shareable observation.

Related

• Trust discourse is not inherently legalistic despite contractual language (similarity 0.81)
• Trust flourishes most where neither kinship nor contract obligations apply (similarity 0.79)
• Trust extends beyond what written contracts can enforce (similarity 0.79)
• Overt risk calculation in contracts can undercut the trust it formalizes (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Institutional and legal constraints give people strong external incentives to be trustworthy #expands (0.85)
• Trustworthiness enforced only by contract threats is not genuine trust #complicates (0.82)
• Agreements stay enforceable through the shadow of future bargains #corroborates (0.78) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 118