Trust reduces complexity by substituting inner certainty for external certainty

Evidence

The system substitutes inner certainty for external certainty9 and in so doing raises its tolerance of uncertainty in external relationships. The problem of the complexity gap thereby shifts to some extent into the secondary problem of inner certainty. Inner certainty can come about in two different, indeed opposite, ways – and it is largely because of this that the development of trust can be pretty reliably anticipated time and again, despite very diverse system conditions. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 154

In the case of trust, reduction of complexity takes special forms through its subjectification. Such forms can be described as changes in the level at which uncertainty is absorbed, or made tolerable. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 154

Categorization

• DEFINE: The core mechanism of Luhmann’s trust-as-complexity-reduction: inner certainty displaces external guarantees.
• XREF: This is the exact theoretical fulcrum for Giddens’s faceless commitments — Stevens’s ‘inner certainty’ in his role substitutes for any external moral verification of Darlington’s politics. — connects to: Trust reduces the truster’s complexity while transferring that burden onto the trusted — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 245; Trust reduces the complexity of a free alter ego’s unpredictability — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 247; Seen-through trust reduces complexity less efficiently than spontaneous trust — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 256 (+20 more)
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 154

Broader Connections

• Trust substitutes knowledge of system structure for unavailable information about others. #expands (0.80)
• Trust operates through uncommunicated inferences rather than explicit justification #corroborates (0.70)