People are honest unless they have a reason not to be and believe others unless suspicion is triggered — the very thought of doubt ‘does not even come to mind’, so trust operates routinely without active verification.
Evidence
Truth-Default Theory (Timothy R. Levine)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Stevens embodies Giddens’s faceless commitments, but Luhmann shows system trust enables ethical abdication; Trust arises not from powerlessness but from lack of full information about others. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 84; Trust operates through uncommunicated inferences rather than explicit justification (+8 more)
Related
- Trust is defined by the reason for expectation, not the expectation itself (similarity 0.85)
- Trust clues only reduce risk, never eliminate the leap of faith. (similarity 0.84)
- Trust is required only amid ignorance, which always grounds scepticism as well. (similarity 0.84)
- Familiarity prevents trust from becoming a conscious problem; doubt reopens it. (similarity 0.84)
- Trust requires belief in the other’s motivations, not mere behavioral expectation (similarity 0.84)
- System trust rests on expectations that most won’t test the system (similarity 0.83)
- Trust is willed action taken despite an information deficit. (similarity 0.83)
- Trusting always exceeds available evidence; reasons for trust are retrospective self-justification (similarity 0.83)
- Most trust is unreflective, routinized background assumption rather than calculated risk (similarity 0.83)
- Trust is a cognitive state of belief, not an action or purpose (similarity 0.82)
- Giddens defines trust as confidence in the reliability of a person or system expressing faith in the probity or love of another or in the correctness of abstract principles, and notes all trust is… (similarity 0.82)
- Excess knowledge that trust is being built can itself collapse it into distrust (similarity 0.82)
- Most people are more inclined to trust people they know than to trust remote expertise or an abstract system, so contemporary life demands trust in science they cannot personally verify. (similarity 0.82)
- Trust rests on structural system guarantees that relieve individuals of risk assessment (similarity 0.82)
- Differences in trust are epistemological, not psychological or irrational. (similarity 0.82)
Broader Connections
- Most trust is unreflective, routinized background assumption rather than calculated risk
#corroborates(0.90) - Familiarity prevents trust from becoming a conscious problem; doubt reopens it.
#expands(0.75) - Trust operates through uncommunicated inferences rather than explicit justification
#corroborates(0.70) - Trust is willed action taken despite an information deficit.
#contradicts(0.65) - Trust is a faith-like commitment, not mere cognitive calculation
#corroborates(0.60) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 73 - Trust in abstract systems is tacit routine, not conscious choice.
#expands(0.60) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 222 - Social norms make people present stable identities that others can trust
#expands(0.60) - Trusting always exceeds available evidence; reasons for trust are retrospective self-justification
#corroborates(0.55)