Trust enables action before another party’s cooperation is assured.

Evidence

Stenning et al. (1986) express this notion most evocatively: “Trust permits action to unfold in situations in which one party must act before they know that the other will play their part” (p. 5). Others make similar assertions: “trust as a gamble” (Luhmann 1979, p. 24); ”… prepayment made by him who trusts” (Luhmann 1979, p. 53); choosing to take an ambiguous path that can lead to a beneficial or harmful event (Deutsch 1962); ”… supplying benefits that create diffuse future obligations” (Blau 1968, p. 4). — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 20

Categorization

• DEFINE: Competing definitions of trust: gamble, prepayment, ambiguous path, and diffuse obligation — a useful field-map of the concept.
• XREF: The ‘prepayment’ and ‘gamble’ framings echo economic theorizing on transaction costs and the shadow of the future in repeated games. — connects to: Institutions enabling safe cooperation must precede trustworthiness, which precedes trust; Trust presupposes a structured environment supplied by the existence of other systems.; Cooperation requires at least one party’s essential action beyond the other’s control. (+4 more)

Related

• Trust is expectation formed before the other’s action can be monitored (similarity 0.86)
• Trust is a result rather than a precondition of cooperation (similarity 0.83)
• Institutions enabling safe cooperation must precede trustworthiness, which precedes trust (similarity 0.83)
• Trust is a social relationship of investing responsibility in another for uncertain future return. (similarity 0.83)
• Trust means predicating one’s actions on others’ risky actions (similarity 0.83)
• Trust requires both freedom to defect and constraints that make cooperation attractive (similarity 0.82)
• Cooperation is often rational gambling on typical trustworthiness, not chosen trust. (similarity 0.82)
• Cooperation is broader than trust and mostly grounded in institutions, not trust. (similarity 0.81)
• Trust is an advance payment that expands rationality by easing complexity constraints. (similarity 0.81)
• Trust requires assurance that is at least somewhat well based (similarity 0.81)
• Trust is defined as delegating authority for uncertain future returns (similarity 0.81)
• Trust is not a resource depleted by use (similarity 0.81)
• Forced interdependence can generate trust almost instantly (similarity 0.81)
• Trust operates where parties are both free and constrained (similarity 0.81)
• Trust is not chosen, a gamble, or an investment; only actions are (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Trust means predicating one’s actions on others’ risky actions #corroborates (0.90) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2424
• Trust is willed action taken despite an information deficit. #corroborates (0.85)
• Institutions enabling safe cooperation must precede trustworthiness, which precedes trust #complicates (0.82)
• Cooperation requires at least one party’s essential action beyond the other’s control. #expands (0.80)
• Trust presupposes a structured environment supplied by the existence of other systems. #complicates (0.78)
• Initial cooperation can wreck backward induction and build rational trust #complicates (0.75) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 606