Trust can be at issue even when a partner’s behavior is highly predictable

Evidence

Virginia Held (1968, 157) has proposed an intermediate position. She supposes that “trust is most required exactly when we least know whether a person will or will not do an action.” This statement is ambiguous, and it may not imply a definition of trust. Suppose she means it partially as a definition. It is true that where there is no room for choice on the part of another, trust cannot be at issue. Yet it can be at issue when I am quite confident of your choice of action. In a particular context, it makes sense to say I trust most the person I think most likely to act in a certain way, and I trust least the person I think least likely to act that way. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 947

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Luhmann’s ‘familiarity’ — trust can coexist with familiarity and predictability rather than only with uncertainty.