Personal trust forms sequentially through a process of mutual selection.

Evidence

In a situation which is relatively open-ended, double contingent, and where both parties can operate selective choices which influence one another, it is possible to set in motion a process which forms trust by tackling the problem of the reduction of complexity over several discrete steps, i.e. sequentially. The process itself has, on the one hand, a framework of conditions by which it is made possible and, on the other, requirements for steps to be taken to strengthen the process of mutual selection which brings trust into being. We must maintain the distinction between conditions of possibility and conditions of realization, at least for purposes of analysis. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 194

Categorization

• DEFINE: Framework terms: conditions of possibility vs. conditions of realization for trust formation — a useful analytical scaffold for comparing Luhmann, Giddens, and Ishiguro.
• XREF: connects to: Mutual trust predates and is prerequisite for civic virtue. — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 33; Personal trust shifts the odds in the trustor’s favour by incentivizing good behavior — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 1204