Trust is willed action taken despite an information deficit.

Evidence

Trust is related to absence in time and in space. There would be no need to trust anyone whose activities were continually visible and whose thought processes were transparent, or to trust any system whose workings were wholly known and understood. It has been said that trust is “a device for coping with the freedom of others,”30but the prime condition of requirements for trust is not lack of power but lack of full information. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 84 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Whoever trusts has to keep control over his own preparedness to accept the risks involved. He must make it clear to himself, if only to reassure himself, that he is not trusting unconditionally but rather within limits and in proportion to specific, rational expectations. It is himself he must curb and control when he puts his trust in someone or something. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 161 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Trust involves a calculable asymmetry of possible harm, while hope does not; Trust arises not from powerlessness but from lack of full information about others. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 84; Trust substitutes knowledge of system structure for unavailable information about others. (+13 more)

Related

• Trust involves a calculable asymmetry of possible harm, while hope does not (similarity 0.94)
• Trust substitutes knowledge of system structure for unavailable information about others. (similarity 0.93)
• Trust arises not from powerlessness but from lack of full information about others. (similarity 0.92)
• External trust depends on learning and system cover, not internal structural reasons. (similarity 0.88)
• Trust rests on structural system guarantees that relieve individuals of risk assessment (similarity 0.85)
• Trust is confidence expressing faith in others’ probity or in abstract principles. (similarity 0.85)
• Giddens defines trust as confidence in the reliability of a person or system expressing faith in the probity or love of another or in the correctness of abstract principles, and notes all trust is… (similarity 0.85)
• Trustworthiness is interest-relative, not a fixed trait of character. (similarity 0.85)
• Trust is a rational policy for conditions where knowledge is unavailable (similarity 0.85)
• Trust is required only amid ignorance, which always grounds scepticism as well. (similarity 0.85)
• Testing trust requires a concrete setting and visible relation to one’s own risk decisions (similarity 0.85)
• Trust requires belief in the other’s motivations, not mere behavioral expectation (similarity 0.84)
• Trust requires controlling one’s own readiness to accept risk (similarity 0.84)
• Trust cannot be demanded but only offered through vulnerability (similarity 0.84)
• Trust is defined by the reason for expectation, not the expectation itself (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Trust arises not from powerlessness but from lack of full information about others. #corroborates (0.80) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 84
• Trust operates through uncommunicated inferences rather than explicit justification #expands (0.60)
• Trust requires controlling one’s own readiness to accept risk #corroborates (0.60) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 161
• Trust substitutes knowledge of system structure for unavailable information about others. #expands (0.50)