The mafia’s restrained style earned it reputational trust

Evidence

But the middle class can sustain the search for exclusivity with the same personal gifts which in other circumstances it invests in peaceful business: order, foresight, caution, and cunning (p. 97). They go so far as to practise understatement about their real power, a style they ostensibly share more with the British than the Italian mentality. This style, moreover, has won them reputation and trust. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2175

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s trust thesis: reputation and trust are earned through observable, disciplined conduct — the mafioso’s understatement is a signal.
• CANDY: The detail that Sicilian mafiosi sound ‘curt, restrained and decisive’ in a land of honey-sweet hyperbole is a quick, colorful tidbit.