Mutual trust is self-sustaining partly because each party benefits from the relationship continuing.

Evidence

Once they have been initiated, trust relationships are maintained in at least two large classes of ways: through direct recognition of the value of the relationship and through indirect feedback, which stimulates continuation or iteration of the reciprocal dealings that constitute the relationship. The mode of direct recognition may be the whole story for many dyadic trust relationships. You and I each know that continued interaction with each other will benefit us. One reason mutual trust seems, on a subjective assessment, to be so commonplace in the range of all trust relationships is that it is so easily maintained and understood. Additionally, as noted in chapter 1, mutual trust gives each party an extra reason for thinking the other trustworthy: that the other benefits from being in the relationship. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 662

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s integrating framework: the doctor’s wife in Saramago sustains order precisely because her relationships benefit from continued interaction; also connects to Hardin’s own encapsulated-interest account developed across this book.