Trust collapses when escalating stakes make an ongoing interaction feel one-shot.

Evidence

Our chief problem is not maintenance in this sense but only the prevention of the collapse of our ongoing interaction in the face of anything that might disrupt it, such as sudden escalation of the stakes that lets one or the other of us treat the next round of our interaction as though it were part of a new, perhaps only one-shot, interaction. In such an interaction, the modest level of trustworthiness that we might have maintained through many iterations might no longer be enough to prevent opportunistic actions—such as that of Trifonov at the end of his interaction with the lieutenant colonel—that will wreck the relationship and maybe even harm one of us. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 663

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the blind quarantine in Saramago: the sudden change in stakes (sudden blindness, scarce food) converts ongoing cooperative interactions into one-shot games, dissolving trust into predation.