Generalized trust actually operates with scoped contextual constraints

Evidence

Generalized trust is, at best, like trust in government in the following sense: We are merely confident that most of those with whom we might interact will be at least moderately trustworthy. It is not truly generalized but has scope constraints. Those who rely on generalized trust for explanations of various things must grant that their claims depend on context. Hence they are saying, for example, that middleclass Americans are likely to be trustworthy with respect to certain kinds of things, so that other middle-class Americans can relatively safely rely on them. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 807

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Hardin’s narrowing of ‘generalized trust’ to context-bound confidence — a key definition for the reader’s Luhmann/Hardin integration.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 807
• XREF: connects to: Generalized trust is closer to expectation than to relationship-specific trust; Survey claims of generalized trust conceal strict contextual limits; What passes for generalized trust is conditional optimism that collapses with context (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Survey items on generalized trust necessarily restrict the range of trustable matters #corroborates (0.95)
• Fine-grained discrimination of whom to trust limits the role of noncognitive trust. #corroborates (0.85)
• Trust forms sequentially by reducing social complexity over discrete steps #complicates (0.80)
• Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust #complicates (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 256
• Parasitic cheating thrives where trust is generalized from trustworthy settings #expands (0.75)