Trust rests on the trusted person’s commitments and incentives, not just expected behavior.

Evidence

A fully rational analysis of trust would depend not solely on the rational expectations of the truster but also on the commitments, not merely the regularity, of the trusted. How can one secure commitments from someone whose love or benevolence does not guarantee good will toward oneself? The most common way is to structure incentives to match the desired commitment. You can more confidently trust me if you know that my own interest will induce me to live up to your expectations. Your trust is your expectation that my interests encapsulate yours. On this view, as Thomas Schelling (1960, 134–35) notes, “trust is often achieved simply by the continuity of the relation between parties and the recognition by each that what he might gain by cheating in a given instance is outweighed by the value of the tradition of trust that makes possible a long sequence of future agreement.” — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 74

Categorization

• DEFINE: Hardin’s core ‘encapsulated interest’ definition of trust: trust is the expectation that another’s interests encapsulate yours — established here at the chapter’s outset.
• XREF: Directly usable for the stated integration goal: Hardin’s encapsulation theory of trust is what the reader wants to bring against Saramago’s blindness epidemic — when sight vanishes, the trusted can no longer see that the truster’s interests are encapsulated, so trust dissolves.
• DEEPTHINKING: The Schelling quote packs the whole rational theory of trust into one sentence — the continuity-of-relationship condition that Hardin spends the chapter qualifying.