Trust rests on the trusted’s incentive to preserve the ongoing relationship.

Evidence

A full statement of the rational theory, including the incentive and knowledge effects, is as stated earlier: Your trust turns not directly on your own interests but rather on whether these are encapsulated in the interests of the trusted. You trust someone if you believe it will be in her interest to be trustworthy in the relevant way at the relevant time, and it will be in her interest because she wishes to maintain her relationship with you. Some accounts of trust do not specifically include reference to the trusted’s interest in being trustworthy toward the truster but merely require an expectation that the trusted will fulfill the trust (Barber 1983; Gambetta 1988, 217–18; Dasgupta 1988). Adequate reason for such an expectation, however, will typically turn on an assessment of likely future incentives. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 111

Categorization

• DEFINE: Central, precise statement of the encapsulated-interest account with its incentive mechanism.
• XREF: This is the exact mechanism (maintaining relationship as incentive) that the doctor’s wife uniquely can sustain in Saramago’s blindness world, where others cannot observe the relationship’s value.