Mainstream sociology has neglected trust as a theoretical concept.

Evidence

Trust has never been a topic of mainstream sociology. Neither classical authors nor modern sociologists use the term in a theoretical context. For this reason the elaboration of theoretical frameworks, one of the main sources of conceptual clarification, has been relatively neglected. Furthermore, empirical research — for example, research about trust and distrust in politics — has relied on rather general and unspecified ideas, confusing problems of trust with positive or negative attitudes toward political leadership or political institutions, with alienation (itself a multidimensional concept), with hopes and worries, or with confidence. … Trust, then, needs for its reconstruction special social institutions; friendship networks and patron-—client relations are examples for this adaptation. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1327

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s guiding purpose: this diagnoses precisely the conceptual sloppiness that a rigorous familiarity/confidence/trust distinction is meant to fix, and connects to Hardin’s demand that trust be defined with observable constraints clearly specified.