Trust emerges when clear rules scaffold otherwise informal group exchange.

Evidence

One Christmas, I won a dirty ceramic Santa figurine, posed exactly like Michelangelo’s Moses — the people at my table sized it up, saying it smelled bad and was Stained, and that someone maybe got it last year at some other Christmas party. … But usually, the gifts people contributed were pretty good — liquor, country music cassettes and CDs, handy gadgets. … As individuals, most private people were honest; when participants agreed on a set of rules, they were trustworthy. … The Christmas grab-bags worked because the teachers’ tight choreography of the event offered a context in which members could trust each other; the rituals in turn may have helped build a sense of trust. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 833

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Milgrom’s law-merchant findings that institutions supply the information structure that makes reputation/cooperation possible - here everyday ritual rules do it. — connects to: Enforced gift-exchange norms briefly mobilize group scrutiny and mutual trust. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 833; Trustworthiness arises from many small open stages rather than single sovereign strokes; Social institutions emerge to substitute for trust relationships that cannot work — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 787 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Enforced gift-exchange norms briefly mobilize group scrutiny and mutual trust. #corroborates (0.82) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 833
• Trustworthiness arises from many small open stages rather than single sovereign strokes #corroborates (0.72)
• Social institutions emerge to substitute for trust relationships that cannot work #corroborates (0.72) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 787