Personal intermediaries are the default route to new trust

Evidence

Trust in systems takes the form of faceless commitments, in which faith is sustained in the workings of knowledge of which the lay person is largely ignorant. … Trust in persons involves facework commitments, in which indicators of the integrity of others (within given arenas of action) are sought. … Reembedding refers to processes by means of which faceless commitments are sustained or transformed by facework. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 214 (#expands, via linked claim)

In the early development of the human individual, basic trust in stable circumstances of self-identity and the surrounding environment—ontological security—does not in the first instance rest upon a sense of the continuity of things or events. Rather, as we have noted, it derives from personal trust and establishes a need for trust in others which no doubt endures, in some form or another, throughout life. Trust in persons, as Erikson emphasises, is built upon mutuality of response and involvement: faith in the integrity of another is a prime source of a feeling of integrity and authenticity of the self. Trust in abstract systems provides for the security of day-to-day reliability, but by its very nature cannot supply either the mutuality or intimacy which personal trust relations offer. In this respect traditional religions are plainly different from modern abstract systems, because their personalised figures allow for a direct transfer of individual trust, with large elements of mutuality. In the case of abstract systems, by contrast, trust presumes faith in impersonal principles, which “answer back” only in a statistical way when they do not deliver the outcomes which the individual seeks. This is one of the main reasons why individuals at access points normally go to great pains to show themselves to be trustworthy: they provide the link between personal and system trust. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 272 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Social complexity forces the shift from personal to impersonal, system-governed trust.; System trust is faceless while personal trust and reembedding depend on facework. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 214; System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 272 (+1 more)

Related

• System trust is faceless while personal trust and reembedding depend on facework. (similarity 0.90)
• Modern society needs non-personal trust beyond what individuals provide (similarity 0.88)
• System trust survives individual disappointments that would destroy personal trust (similarity 0.88)
• System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides (similarity 0.87)
• Reflexive personal trust enables actions impossible by simple trust (similarity 0.86)
• Modern communications stay reliable without shared moral views or personal acquaintance. (similarity 0.84)
• Trust in experts is trust in impersonal systems, not in individuals (similarity 0.84)
• In Giddens, systems obtain a ‘face’ at their ‘access points,’ which sustains or transforms ‘faceless commitments’ through the interplay of disembedding and re-embedding. (similarity 0.84)
• Giddens distinguishes ‘facework commitment’ from ‘faceless commitment’ to depict the difference between expert systems and their representatives, with trust located between the two. (similarity 0.83)
• System trust underwrites ontological security but yields no psychological reward (similarity 0.83)
• Learning to trust is steered by the developing self-identity (similarity 0.83)
• Personal trust becomes system trust under civilized conditions (similarity 0.83)
• Even committed system insiders need facework to sustain their own internal trust. (similarity 0.83)
• Giddens describes how trust in abstract systems develops as ‘faceless commitments,’ yet notes relations of trust are always ambivalent because confidence is needed amid fundamental ignorance of… (similarity 0.82)
• Social complexity forces the shift from personal to impersonal, system-governed trust. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• System trust is faceless while personal trust and reembedding depend on facework. #expands (0.85) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 214
• Trust grows out of the specific relationship between the parties #corroborates (0.85)
• System trust cannot supply the mutuality that personal trust provides #expands (0.82) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 272
• Social complexity forces the shift from personal to impersonal, system-governed trust. #complicates (0.75)