Trust is domain-specific and shifts with the trusted person’s incentives.

Evidence

Even then, the trust depends on the context. For example, I might ordinarily trust you with even the most damaging gossip but not with the price of today’s lunch (you always—conveniently?—forget such debts), while I would trust another with the price of lunch but not with any gossip. I might trust you with respect to X but not with respect to ten times X. Some few people I might trust with almost anything, many others with almost nothing. But in a radically different context, such as when you are under great duress and my piece of gossip would help you out of a bad situation, I might no longer trust you with it. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 92

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the two-place, context-dependent character of trust that anchors the whole analysis.
• XREF: The duress example shows trust shifting with the trusted’s incentives — precisely the observable constraints Hardin says underwrite trustworthiness.