Trust substitutes knowledge of system structure for unavailable information about others.

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: System trust rests on trusting that others also trust — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 261; Trust rests on structural system guarantees that relieve individuals of risk assessment; Some systems must invest trust externally, while programmed roles reduce internal trust needs. (+11 more)

Related

• Trust arises not from powerlessness but from lack of full information about others. (similarity 0.94)
• External trust depends on learning and system cover, not internal structural reasons. (similarity 0.93)
• Trust is willed action taken despite an information deficit. (similarity 0.93)
• Trust involves a calculable asymmetry of possible harm, while hope does not (similarity 0.88)
• System trust rests on trusting that others also trust (similarity 0.87)
• Trust rests on structural system guarantees that relieve individuals of risk assessment (similarity 0.86)
• System structure substitutes for unavailable information about others (similarity 0.86)
• System trust rests on expectations that most won’t test the system (similarity 0.84)
• Trust requires some prior information and cannot arise from nothing (similarity 0.84)
• Trusting always exceeds available evidence; reasons for trust are retrospective self-justification (similarity 0.84)
• Trust reduces social complexity by replacing missing information with guaranteed security (similarity 0.84)
• Trust in experts is trust in impersonal systems, not in individuals (similarity 0.84)
• Trustworthiness is interest-relative, not a fixed trait of character. (similarity 0.83)
• Trust requires freedom be transferred from uncontrollable potency to institutionalized personal responsibility. (similarity 0.83)
• Trust is required only amid ignorance, which always grounds scepticism as well. (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Trust arises not from powerlessness but from lack of full information about others. #expands (0.60) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 84