Uncertainty-reduction strategies induce rather than replace trust.
Evidence
Granovetter would surely argue that these measures “do not produce trust but instead are a functional substitute for it” (1985, p. 489), as he would also suggest about risk spreading and contractual control by principals, described earlier. In contrast, I am arguing that only strategies that virtually eliminate agency and uncertainty are functional substitutes for trust. All efforts to reduce uncertainty-whether through familiarity, reciprocity, threats of sanction, procedural rules, policing, compensatory side bets, or whatever-seek to induce trust. I do not consider personalized control to be all that different from the other measures. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 63
Categorization
- XREF: Directly engages Granovetter’s classic claim that proxies substitute for trust; this is a genuine scholarly disagreement worth tracking against the reader’s trust and social-contract work. — connects to: Reflexive trust can absorb more uncertainty with less risk; Reducing distrust is different from generating trust; Trust reduces complexity by substituting inner certainty for external certainty — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 154 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Reflexive trust can absorb more uncertainty with less risk
#expands(0.82) - Extending trust can create the trustworthy behavior it presumes
#corroborates(0.80) - Institutions substitute for the need to trust in risky interactions
#contradicts(0.78) - Reducing distrust is different from generating trust
#complicates(0.72) - Trust reduces the truster’s complexity while transferring that burden onto the trusted
#expands(0.72) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 245 - Trust substitutes knowledge of system structure for unavailable information about others.
#qualifies(0.72) - Distrust functions as an equivalent alternative to trust
#expands(0.72) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 262 - Trust reduces complexity by substituting inner certainty for external certainty
#expands(0.70) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 154 - Trust operates through uncommunicated inferences rather than explicit justification
#expands(0.70)