Trust as a Social Reality*

Portland, Oregon
J. DAVID LEWIS,
ANDREW WEIGERT, Universityof Notre Dame

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Abstract
Although trust is an underdeveloped concept in sociology, promising theoretical
formulations are available in the recent work of Luhmann and Barber. This socio-
logica! version complements the psychological and attitudinal conceptualizations
of experimental and survey researchers. Trust is seen to include both emotional
and cognitive dimensions and to function as a deep assumption underwriting so-
cial order. Contemporary examples such as lying, family exchange, monetary atti-
tudes, and litigation illustrate the centrality of trust as a sociological reality.

In recent years, sociologists have begun to treat trust as a sociological topic

(e.g., Conviser; Garfinkel; Haas and Deseran; Henslin; Holzner; Strub and
Priest; Weigert,a,b). Indeed, two short and powerful books, Niklas Luh-
mann's Trust and Power (1979) and Bernard Barber's The Logic and Limits
of Trust (1983), have placed trust at the center of sociological theorizing
about contemporary society. Nevertheless, we agree with Luhmann's la-
ment that there is a "regrettably sparse literature which has trust as its
main theme within sociology" (8).
There is a large quantity of research on trust by experimental psy-
chologists and political scientists, which, however, appears theoretically
unintegrated and incomplete from the standpoint of a sociology of trust.
These researchers typically conceptualize trust as a psychological event
within the individual rather than as an intersubjective or systemic social
reality. They also tend to use methodological approaches that reduce trust
to its cognitive content through psychometric scaling techniques or to its
behavioral expressions in laboratory settings. Luhmann and Barber, on
the other hand, present trust as an irreducible and multidimensional so-
cial reality.
The purposes of this paper are three-fold: (1) to propose a sociologi-
cal conceptualization of trust extracted largely from the works of Luh-
mann, Barber, Parsons, and Simmel; l (2) to bring this sociologica) concep-
*Address correspondence to Andrew Weigert, Department of Sociology, University of Notre
Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556.
®1985 The University of North Carolina Press
967
968 / Social Forces Volume 63:4, June 1985

tualization to bear on the psychological and political science studies of

trust in order to go beyond their conceptual and theoretical limits; and (3)
briefly to review selected recent treatments which collectively demonstrate
the sociological nature of trust and its crucial importance across a variety
of social institutions.

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I. Trust as a Sociological Concept

From a sociological perspective, trust must be conceived as a property of

collective units (ongoing dyads, groups, and collectivities), not of isolated
individuals. Being a collective attribute, trust is applicable to the relations
among people rather than to their psychological states taken individually.
Therefore, we may say that trust exists in a social system insofar as the
members of that system act according to and are secure in the expected futures
constituted by the presence of each other or their symbolic representations (cf.
Barber,b). It is the mutual "faithfulness" (Simmel,a,379) on which all social
relationships ultimately depend. Consequently, trust may be thought of as
a functional prerequisite for the possibility of society in that the only alter-
natives to appropriate trust are "chaos and paralysing fear" (Luhmann,4).
It is more basic for the constitution of solidary groups than even a sense of
moral obligation. "Trust.. . is the attitudinal ground—in affectively moti-
vated loyalty—for acceptance of solidary relationships" (Parsons,e,142).
Although trust in general is indispensable in social relationships, it
always involves an unavoidable element of risk and potential doubt. We
would not have to accept this risk if there were some functional alterna-
tive to trust. In order to understand why such an alternative to trust is
not always available, we must consider the social function of trust more
closely. Luhmann argues that the function of trust is "the reduction of
complexity."
This complexity is easily seen in the temporal aspects of social life.
Society, especially modern industrial society, is organized by complex and
tightly integrated temporal structures (see Lewis and Weigert,a). The flow
of social interactions is controlled by "socially expected durations" (Mer-
ton) which define when activities are to begin and end. The individual bas
the twin problems of fitting together his or her unique set of social time-
tables while simultaneously coping with the potentially disruptive effects
of unexpected events and others' timetables.
It is not possible to develop plans of action which take into ac-
count all possible contingent futures. If all possible future events were
accorded equal probability, the future would appear with such enormous
complexity as to preclude rational action in the present. What is needed,
then, is a strategy to reduce this complexity to manageable proportions.
This reduction of complexity is possible if the cognitively expected proba-
 Trust as Reality / 969

bilities of most of the contingently possible future events are thought of as

zero for all practical purposes.
Rational prediction is one such strategy. By collecting and process-
ing information about known causal relationships, we can make predic-
tions that certain futures are highly probable and others are too remote to
require serious consideration in present planning. Unfortunately, rational
planning alone is not sufficient. Even if we assume a deterministic uni-

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verse, we simply do not have the necessary time and resources to ratio-
nally predict and control the effects of oncoming futures. Trust is a func-
tional alternative to rational prediction for the reduction of complexity.
Indeed, trust succeeds where rational prediction alone would fail, because
to trust is to live as if certain rationally possible futures will not occur.
Thus, trust reduces complexity far more quickly, economically, and thor-
oughly than does prediction. Trust allows social interactions to proceed on
a simple and confident basis where, in the absence of trust, the monstrous
complexity posed by contingent futures would again return to paralyze
action (Simmel,b).
Even though trust is functionally necessary for the continuance of
harmonious social relationships, its actual continuance in any particular
social bond is always problematic. Friends and spouses sometimes come
to distrust each other; citizens lose trust in the government, the judicial
system, the news media, or the monetary currency; patients and clients
wonder if doctors and lawyers are trustworthy at all. Such distrust itself
may be functional in complex interpersonal and institutional relationships
(Barber,b). Political scientists have perhaps best documented that distrust
in any set of political incumbents is functional for the continuance of
democratic institutions (Hart). Distrust, in other words, also reduces com-
plexity by dictating a course of action based on suspicion, monitoring, and
activation of institutional safeguards. Ultimately, however, there is no
foolproof safeguard, and suspicion eventually gives way to knowledge or
realignment, so that actors must fall back on some kind of trust. Al-
though, as Barber suggests, both trust and distrust may be functional, the
dynamics of each would lead to different kinds of systems, the former
tending toward solidarity and the Jatter toward atomism.
We see that the primary function of trust is sociological rather than
psychological, since individuals would have no occasion or need to trust
apart from social relationships. In addition, we would like to argue that,
like its function, the bases on which trust rests are primarily social as well.
This raises the question of how trust in other persons and institutions is
established, maintained, and, when necessary, restored.
An adequate conceptual analysis of trust begins by recognizing its
multi-faceted character. It has distinct cognitive, emotional, and behav-
ioral dimensions which are merged into a unitary social experience. We
will argue that each of these three dimensions must be comprehended
970 / Social Forces Volume 63:4, June 1985

sociologically and that variations in the relative importance of the cogni-

tive base of trust in comparison to its emotional base provide the grounds
for differentiating two important subtypes of trust. Moreover, this analysis
makes it possible to distinguish trust from the various psychological states
and processes (faith, prediction, etc.) with which it has sometimes been
conflated. Barber (b), for example, overly restricts his conceptualization
of trust to expectations, which results in a too functional and rational

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analysis.
First, trust is based on a cognitive process which discriminates
among persons and institutions that are trustworthy, distrusted, and un-
known. In this sense, we cognitively choose whom we will trust in which
respects and under which circumstances, and we base the choice on what
we take to be "good reasons;' constituting evidence of trustworthiness.
Luhmann states, "Familiarity is the precondition for trust as well as dis-
trust, i.e., for every sort of commitment to a particular attitude towards
the future" (19). As Simmel (a) had likewise observed, trust involves a
degree of cognitive familiarity with the object of trust that is somewhere
between total knowledge and total ignorance. That is, if one were omnis-
cient, actions could be undertaken with complete certainty, leaving no
need, or even possibility, for trust to develop. On the other hand, in the
case of absolute ignorance, there can be no reason to trust. When faced by
the totally unknown, we can gamble but we cannot trust.
No matter how much additional knowledge of an object we may
gain, however, such knowledge alone can never cause us to trust. The
manifestation of trust on the cognitive level of experience is reached when
social actors no longer need or want any further evidence or rational rea-
sons for their confidence in the objects of trust. Although some prior ex-
perience with the object of trust is a necessary conditión for establishing
the cognitive element in trust, such experience only opens the door to
trust without actually constituting it. The cognitive element in trust is
characterized by a cognitive "leap" beyond the expectations that reason
and experience alone would warrant they simply serve as the platform
from which the leap is made. Luhmann describes this cognitive process as
"overdrawing" on the informational base. Each individual is typically able
to make the leap not only because of his or her particular psychological
make-up, but also on the assumption that others in the social world join in
the leap. Although there are individual differences relevant to the trust
factor, the cognitive content of trust is a collective cognitive reality that
transcends the realm of individual psychology, and herein lies the theo-
retical significance of Luhmann's claim that the cognitive base of trust lies
in "trust in trust." Each trusts on the assumption that others trust. We will
argue that this cognitive attitude is present in all forms of trust, but the
experiential and rational "platform" from which the cognitive leap is made
varies considerably from one type of trust to another.
 Trust as. Reality / 971

The sociological foundation of trust is also constructed on an emo-

tional base that is complementary to its cognitive base. This affective com-
ponent of trust consists in an emotional bond among all those who partici-
pate in the relationship. Like the affective bonds of friendship and love,
trust creates a social situation in which intense emotional investments
may be made, and this is why the betrayal of a personal trust arouses a
sense of emotional outrage in the betrayed. The betrayal of trust strikes a

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deadly blow at the foundation of the relationship itself, not merely at the
specific content of the betrayal. This emotional component is present in all
types of trust, but it is normally most intense in close interpersonal trust.
Its presence in public trust is evident in the surge of emotional indignation
we feel when we learn of doctors performing unnecessary surgery on el-
derly people in order to collect federal Medicare payments or of corrupt
politicians and judges who accept illegal "kickbacks" and the like. When
recipients of public trust turn that trust to their personal, pecuniary ad-
vantage, they inflict serious damage to the heart of civil society. It is this
abuse of trust, much more than the simple illegality of individual actions,
that provokes our emotional wrath. The emotional content of trust con-
tributes to the cognitive "platform" (mentioned above) from which trust is
established and sustained. This contribution derives from the knowledge
that the violation of trust threatens to bring severe emotional pain to all
who are implicated in the trust relationship, inciuding paradoxically the
violators themselves. Thus, we see that the emotional content of trust is
just as reciprocal and intersubjective as is its cognitive base.
This brings us to the third sociological base of trust namely, its
behavioral enactment. The practical significance of trust lies in the social
action it underwrites. Behaviorally, to trust is to act as if the uncertain
future actions of others were indeed certain in circumstances wherein the
violation of these expectations results in negative consequences for those
involved. In other words, the behavioral content of trust is the undertak-
ing of a risky course of action on the confident expectation that all persons
involved in the action will act competently and dutifully (Barber,b). The
behavioral content of trust is reciprocally related to its cognitive and emo-
tional aspects. Luhmann points out that behavioral displays of trust-
implying actions help to create the cognitive platform of trust. When we
see others acting in ways that imply that they trust us, we become more
disposed to reciprocate by trusting in them more. Conversely, we come to
distrust those whose actions appear to violate our trust or to distrust us.
Similarly, trust-implying actions help to establish or reinforce the emo-
tional sentiment of trust, as positive affect circulates among those who
express trust behaviorally, just as negative affect artses among those who
betray or act distrustfully toward each other.
To summarize, although we can identify three distinctive analytical
dimensions of trust—cognitive, emotional, and behavioral—which corre-
972 / Social Forces Volume 63:4, June 1985

spond to the three basic modes of human social experience, in reality

these dimensions of the phenomenon are interpenetrating and mutually
supporting aspects of the one, unitary experience and social imperative
that we simply call "trust." The roots of trust extend to every modality of
human experience but it does not thereby lose its unity.

TYPES OF TRUST

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From this general sociological conception of trust, we may differentiate
types of trust. Although the cognitive, affective, and behavioral contents
of trust are present in every instance of trust to some extent, their qualita-
tive mix across instances of trust differs, and these differences provide the
basis for distinguishing types of trust relationships. That is, the cognitive
platform may be quite limited (strangers passing on the street) or may be
extremely extensive (as in nuclear arms reduction negotiations); the emo-
tional content may be minimal (most interactions among bureaucrats) or
highly intense (relations between lovers); and fmally, the behavioral content
may be restricted to a narrowly circumscribed act or extend to an indefi-
nitely large range of acts among those involved. We will designate those
trust relationships in which there is a preponderance of cognitive content
as "cognitive trust;' and those wherein the emotional element is more
dominant we shall term "emotional trust." Generally, the behavioral limits
of the trust relationship are relatively specific in cognitive trust and more
diffuse or open-ended in emotional trust.
Trusting behavior may be motivated primarily by strong positive
affect for the object of trust (emotional trust) or by "good rational reasons"
why the object of trust merits trust (cognitive trust), or, more usually,
some combination of both. One may hypothesize that the stronger the
emotional content relative to the cognitive content, the less likely contrary
behavioral evidence will weaken the relationship. "Love and hate make
one blind" (Luhmann,81). Taken to extremes, if all cognitive content were
removed from emotional trust, we would be left with blind faith or fixed
hope, the true believer or the pious faithful. On the other hand, if all
emotional content were removed from cognitive trust, we would be left
with nothing more than a coldblooded prediction or rationally calculated
risk: the ultimate war game in which the only logic is self interest and kill
ratios. Trust in everyday life is a mix of feeling and rational thinking
(Weigert,a), and so to exclude one or the other from the analysis of trust
leads only to misconceptions that conflate trust with faith or prediction.
The types of trust may be visually represented by the property space relat-
ing rationality and emotionality in Figure 1.
The existence of these different types of trust is theoretically com-
prehensible from a sociological viewpoint. The comparative strength and
importance of the cognitive versus the emotional base of trust vary de-
 Trust as Reality I 973

EMOTIONALITY

VI rtually
High Low Absent
R High Ideological Cognitlve Rational
A Trust Trust Prediction

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T
I
0
Low Emotional Mundane, Probable
N Trust Routine Anticipation
A Trust
L
I
T Vi rtually Faith Fate
Y Uncertainty,
Absent Panic

Figure 1. RATIONALITY ANDEMOTIONALITY BASES. TYPES OFTRuSt AND BOUNDARY STATES

pending on the type of social relationship, situation, and system under

consideration (Bonoma). Specifically, the emotional content of trust rela-
tionships is typically quite high in primary group relations, and the cogni-
tive-rational base of trust is more extensive and continuing in the for-
mation of trust relationships in secondary groups. Consequently, with
population growth and greater structural differentiation, a greater number
of social relationships are based on cognitive trust than on emotional
trust. Luhmann refers to this as a macro change from a social order based
largely on personal or interpersonal trust that characterizes small and rela-
tively undifferentiated societies to a social order based more on system
trust (i.e., trust in the functioning of bureaucratic sanctions and safe-
guards, especially the legal system) that characterizes modern, complex
societies (and see Barber,b).
The reasons for the change are fairly obvious. In the change from a
face-to-face society to one of widespread anonymity in a demographically
large and structurally complicated system, a person often interacts with
others who are not known well or even at all. Yet, for example, we do not
hesitate to buy a new appliance from a stranger if we know that s/he is
acting merely as a representative of a corporation which offers a warranty
for its product. Similarly, we will buy or sell a house to someone we do not
know, because we know that the power of the State will intervene if neces-
sary to enforce the terms of the legal contract. These are examples of
system trust which modem society increasingly depends on, inasmuch as
most of the interactions occurring in such societies would be too risky,
unpredictable, or downright impossible if they had to be based only on
974 / Social Forces Volume 63:4, June 1985

personal trust. We would have to collect a great deal more information

about individuals with whom we interact, and the pace and scope of mod-
ern life is such that there is not sufficient time for building up the number
of personal trusts required.
Luhmann further argues that personal trust and system trust rest
on different bases. Personal trust involves an emotional bond between
individuals, and the emotional pain that each would experience in the

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event of betrayal serves as the protective base of trust even where other
types of short-term gains could be realized by breaking the trust. This
emotional content is largely absent in system trust. System trust rests on
what Luhmann (drawing heavily from Goffman) calls a "presentational"
base. That is, system trust is activated by the appearance that "everything
seems in proper order." Indeed, our assumption that the other is who s/he
appears to be forges the essential link between appearances and selfhood.
Such "trust in identity" is essential for communication and is a constitu-
tive bond of society (cf. Giffin and Patton; Goffman; Holzner; Holzner and
Robertson).
System trust is indispensable for the effective functioning of the
"symbolic media of exchange" such as money and political power. With-
out public trust and confidence in the reliability, effectiveness, and legiti-
macy of money, laws, and other cultural symbols, modern social institu-
tions would soon disintegrate (see Parsons,c,d). One sure sign that a
social system is under severe strain and possibly on the verge of funda-
mental structural change is generalized loss of trust in the monetary sys-
tem, in the legitimacy of political leadership and authority, in educational
and religious institutions, and (ultimately and consequently) in interper-
sonal trust in everyday life. As Durkheim similarly noted, institutional
trust underwrites interpersonal trust; therefore, we would expect to lose
trust in other persons as trust in our common institutions erodes. This
again indicates the deeply sociological nature of trust in both its sources
and functions in human group life.

II. A Critique of Empirical Social Science Research on Trust

Perhaps the most important theoretical insight of Luhmann's work on the

sociology of trust is his observation that trust cannot be fully understood
and studied exdusively on either the psychologica) level or on the institu-
tional level, because it so thoroughly permeates both. For this reason, an
adequate sociological theory of trust must offer a conceptualization of
trust that bridges the interpersonal and the systemic levels of analysis,
rather than dividing them into separate domains with different definitions
and empirical methodologies for different social science disciplines. The
bulk of social science research on trust has been conducted by political
 Trust as Reality / 975

scientists studying trust in government and public officials, and by experi-

mental social psychologists studying determinants of trusting behavior in
laboratory settings. Although these groups of researchers have sometimes
borrowed from each other theoretically and methodologically, no general
paradigm of trust has emerged from their work. Indeed, a survey of the
massive number of empirical studies conducted by these groups fails to
reveal even a common working definition of trust. Consequently, the social

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science research on trust has produced a good deal of conceptual confu-
sion regarding the meaning of trust and its place in social life. Although
political scientists and psychologists have conducted major research pro-
grams with trust or distrust as the main object of inquiry, they have gener-
ally remained incognizant of the theoretical contributions of Simmel, Par-
sons, or Luhmann, and have not adequately recognized the social nature
of trust.
The bulk of this research has concentrated on two different concep-
tualizations of trust. Psychologists working from personality theory have
conceptualized trust as a psychological construct or trait that individuals
develop in varying degrees, depending on their personal experiences and
prior socialization. The focus of research is on individual differences or
differences in group averages (e.g., college students) across time. Method-
ologically, this research is based on psychometric scaling techniques, the
most prominent scale being the Rotter Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS). This
scale and its underlying "social learning" theory were developed by J. B.
Rotter (a,b,c,d,e; Rotter et al.). Rotter (d) decines trust as the generalized
expectancy that the statements of others can be relied on or promises will
be fulfilled. Much of the research and theorizing about political trust and
the relationship between "efficacy" and "political trust" has conceptual-
ized trust along similar lines (Bachman and Jennings; Brown; Campbell;
Cole; Hart; Hochreich and Rotter; Watts; Wolfe; Zimmer).
The second major conceptualization of trust is represented by the
behavioral psychologists who study behavioral trust in laboratory experi-
ments, particularly the "prisoner's dilemma" (PD) game. They propose a
strictly behavioral interpretation of the concept "trust" by equating trust
with cooperation with others in the game. To trust is operationalized as a
"trusting" (i.e., cooperating) choice of behavior. Research focuses on de-
termining situational variables which increase (decrease) the level of trust
(cooperation) or distrust (competition) between persons playing the game.
For example, many studies have shown that cooperation in the PD game
increases when players are able to communicate their expectations to
each other and when players carry through on their threats and prom-
ises. Z Morton Deutsch is the most prominent of the experimentalist group
(a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j). 3
It may be concluded that, despite research efforts to merge the Rot-
ter-type personality theory of trust with behavioral (especially experimen-
976 / Social Forces Volume 63:4, June 1985

tal) conceptualizations of trust within the scope of a single research design

and theory, these two Tines of research and theorizing appear destined to
proceed in distinct directions. The fundamental reason for the persistent
segregation of these research programs is that trust is a highly complex
and multidimensional phenomenon, having distinct cognitive, affective,
behavioral, and situational manifestations which may not be co-present at
any particular point in time; therefore, it is often far too simplistic to ask.

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whether an individual trusts or distrusts another person or governmental
agency. One may trust in some respects and contexts but not others. As a
result, when trust is regarded as a psychological state, it is easily confused
with other psychological states (hope, faith, behavioral prediction, etc.),
and dealt with methodologically in ways which have reductionistic con-
sequences.
In groups for which trust exists as a social reality, interpersonal
trust comes naturally and is not reducible to individual psychology. For
example, Zand found that groups characterized by strong feelings of com-
mon purpose and interest are more able to focus on group problems di-
rectly, whereas groups that are more individuated tend to degenerate into
interpersonal conflicts when problems arise. Like the Durkheimian collec-
tive representation, the sentiment of trust is manifest in the psyches of
individual group members, but this must not lead us to the common but
erroneous inference that trust is fundamentally an individual and behav-
ioral phenomenon produced by rational machinations of autonomous, cal-
culating individuals.
The Jatter conception of trust is predominantly that of the experi-
mentalists, and may account for the limited results of their PD game ex-
periments. If, as the sociological conception of trust holds, trust is es-
sentially social and normative rather than individual and calculative,
we would not expect it to manifest itself strongly in experiments where
strangers are brought together to interact in the absence of prior social
relationships among them and according to the norms of the experimental
situation. Although they speak of trust, these researchers are not really
studying trust at all. What they are investigating are the processes by
which individuals come to formulate and act on predictions about the
behavior of others. But, as Luhmann notes, trust is not mere prediction:
"Trust is not a means that can be chosen for particular ends, much less an
end/means structure capable of being optimized" (88). Predictions and
behaviors based on psychologically reductionist models are "functional
equivalents for trust but not acts of trust in the true sense." Prediction and
trust both function to reduce complexity and uncertainty, but, as we have
argued earlier, in different ways.
Trust begins where prediction ends. The overrationalized concep-
tion of trust, by reducing it to a conscious, cognitive state presumably
evidenced by cooperative behavior, totally ignores the emotional nature of
 Trust as Reality / 977

trust. Earlier psychologists and sociologists emphasized the importance of

emotional ties in human group life, but with the rise of behaviorism and
operationalism, the emotional side of social relations has been neglected
in comparison to the behavioral and cognitive dimensions of human expe-
rience. Fortunately, with the current resurgence of interest in the social
psychology of emotion (Gordon; Kemper), it seems likely that the affective
aspect of trust will be given attention equal to its cognitive and behavioral

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aspects.
There are other conceptual difficulties with the behavioral interpre-
tation of trust. One may trust cognitively without necessarily trusting be-
haviorally. For instance, a police officer may be ordered by a superior to
spy on his police partner whom he trusts but the superior does not. One
may also feign trust behaviorally without trusting cognitively. By treating
behavioral trust as an unfailing indicator of cognitive trust, the PD game
experimentalists have restricted their attention to overt behavior which
may not necessarily arise from cognitive or emotional trust. In these cases,
behavioral "trust" is not really trust at all. It is a calculated prediction, an
experiment, a pretense, or something else. Strictly speaking, behavioral
trust should be conceptualized as situationally activated cognitive andlor
emotional trust. Trust cannot be adequately understood by a "behavioral-
ized" explanation, though behavior is the constitutive medium for doing
trust. Even recent analyses by sociologists, however, tend toward a psy-
chological reductionism of trust (cf. Haas and Deseran).

III. The Sociology of Trust: Illustrative Treatments

In this final section, we discuss analyses of the necessity of trust in a

variety of institutional domains (cf. Barber,b). These treatments highlight
both the social reality of trust and its fruitfulness as an interpretive tool.
The most general and wide-ranging discussion is presented by Sissela Bok
in her analysis of lying as a moral choice in both public and private life.
She explores arguments for lying in crucial institutional domains of public
life such as medicine, government, international relations, social and be-
havioral science, law, and the professions generally. Pointed applications
are also made to private life and typical interactional situations. After ex-
ploring traditional philosophical and religious arguments against lying as
well as standard pragmatic arguments for lying in specific situations, she
formulates what we regard as a sociological interpretation of the moral
consequences of lying across all situations.
Bok's argument assumes that a type of general trust is essential to
all social orders. Every lie, however, threatens to some degree this general
trust. Regardless of specific individual or institutional justifications for the
particular act of lying, its impact on general trust must also be taken into
978 / Social Forces Volume 63:4, June 1985

account. Bok writes that "... trust in some degree of veracity functions as
a foundation of relations among human beings; when this trust shatters or
wears away, institutions collapse" (33). For example, the moral effect of a
president's lying to the American people is not judged only by the decep-
tion in the matter at hand, but more profoundly, by the threat to the
general trust underlying the political order. In a word, Bok's central moral
argument is sociological: every lie threatens general trust which is essen-

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tial to society; therefore, lying threatens society, and the morality of the lie
must be judged in that general social context.
A second book presents a general and useful, if somewhat under-
developed, treatment of trust in the context of contemporary American
society. Faced with the contemporary increase in the frequency and scope
of seeking legal redress in the courts for perceived harm, Jethro Lieber-
man argues that ours has become a highly "litigious" society. I-iis underly-
ing model for interpreting the salience of litigation builds on characteriza-
tion of the change from traditional to modern society as a shift from status
to contract as the dominant idea governing social relationships. Lieber-
man sees contemporary society as characterized by a further shift from
contract to fiduciary relationships in which persons are increasingly de-
pendent for their own welfare on the presumed, but not specifically con-
tracted, competent and dutiful actions of others. Fiduciary relationships
are safeguarded, not by explicit substantive rules that would be too nar-
row and inflexible in the face of contemporary complex knowledge and
techniques, but by ethically vague and almost hortatory standards govern-
ing relationships, especially those between relatively expert, autonomous
parties and relatively unknowing, dependent parties. If the dependent
party discerns an injustice in the case of an unsatisfactory outcome, the
vagueness of standards of performance and accountability demands clari-
fication. And the likely recourse by the offended party is to seek such
clarification as well as redress in the courts.
Lieberman pursues his thesis through issues of product liability,
medical malpractice, an emerging environmental ethic, court mandated
affirmative action, and the "erosion of immunity" as even previously im-
mune governmental units are sued. Prototypical of fiduciary relationships
are those based on standards aimed at a general or common good between
client and professional, or citizen and official. Narrow rules dictating pro-
fessional or official action would contradict the nature of such relation-
ships and be totally inadequate for the good which is sought. Fiduciary
relationships demand that the dependent party trust in the competence
and integrity of the professional or official in accordance with the highest
ethical standards.
Trust is the essenbal assumption that makes it possible to enact
fiduciary relationships in pursuit of shared goals. Such goals cannot be
empirically assured in every case, however. Patients die; clients lose their
 Trust as Reality / 979

claims; citizens are denied satisfaction; and some cars are lemons. In the
absence of adequate trust, perceived failure in competence or integrity is
likely def`ined by the dependent party as incompetence or fraud, an injus-
tice for which redress is increasingly likely to be sought in the courts. The
significant increase in court suits involving such issues as medical mal-
practice is a response to two major changes in contemporary society: first,
the spread of fiduciary relationships; second, for whatever reason, the

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weakening or absence of trust necessary to enable such relationships to
function satisfactorily. Moreover, as trust weakens publicly, the motivation
for other dependent parties to seek redress in the courts increases, further
weakening trust within the class of sued parties, such as doctors, lawyers,
educators, or elected officials. A spiral of distrust emerges, leading to a
"rush to the courtrooms" and representing "what seems to account for
much litigation elsewhere: a fundamental distrust for those in authority.
The courts cannot solve this problem,.... Trust can be promised and
trust can be earned, but it cannot be ordered" (Lieberman,134).
A third institutionally focused analysis of trust concerns the eco-
nomic domain and money in particular. S. Herbert Frankel, an economist,
argues that contemporary "monetarist" theorists fail to give sufficient
weight to the reality of money as a core social institution which depends
on adequate trust for its proper functioning. Monetary theory simply
treats money as though it were another inert "commodity" object which
would obey the laws of classical economics. Frankel draws heavily from
Simmel's The Philosophy of Money to refute this assumption and to add
sociological realism to the partial abs^Tactions of Keynesian monetarism.
For Frankel and Simmel, money functions best when people strongly trust
in it, and it cannot function at all without trust. People tend to trust
money most when it circulates reasonably freely and "naturally" with-
out any taint of deliberate manipulation for special interests. Excessive
and apparently arbitrary political manipulation of money supply, interest
rates, debt financing, etc., undermines general public trust in money. The
consequences of the total loss of general trust are potentially far more
socially damaging than could be compensated by any short-term politi-
cal or economic gains these monetary manipulations may produce. As
Frankel states the issue:
The trust in money—i.e., in who does the defining—therefore implies trust in the
maintenance of the monetary order. This is not a question merely of how particular
individual rights, debts, or obligations are dealt with. What is at issue here is a
much more basic question: How can a trustworthy society, with stability of charac-
ter be maintained and continue to be relied upon? (39).

In a word, manipulating the monetary system is an attempt to

transform a core social institution into just another commodity object like
corn or wheat. Such an objectivist reduction of money is false and mis-
980 / Social Forces Volume 63:4, June 1985

leading. Economic collapse occurs in contemporary industrial and com-

mercial societies not when nature fails to send rain or locusts ravage
crops, but when society fails to support trust and sends citizens running
on the banks. The sociological realism of Frankel's argument is empha-
sized in his concluding pages. He rejects "the nominalist conception of
public monetary obligations according to which they can be abrogated at
the dictates of convenience and expediency." Such actions "lead to the

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destruction of trust in the monetary order" (97). Indeed, he sees the free
monetary order as "a condition of civility, a code of civil monetary behav-
iour, an ideal—the pursuit of trust" (100).
The books by Lieberman and Frankel show that trust is vitally im-
portant to the political and economic institutions. We now consider a
third institutionally focused study which establishes the sociological sig-
nifiicance of trust within the family. In his analysis of family structures in
nineteenth century Lancashire, Michael Anderson takes a major step to-
ward the development of a middle-range theory of trust by using trust as a
mediating variable between the macro-variables of poverty and rapid so-
cial change and a set of proximate variables concemed with family rela-
tionships. He defines trust as a normative commitment to a relationship in
contrast to contractual or calculative commitments, such as "what's in it
for me?" He identifies four parameters that we can use to theorize about
the level of trust: (1) the greater the homogeneity of the group, the higher
is the level of trust; (2) the greater the connectedness of a social network,
the greater is the level of trust; (3) the greater the size and complexity of a
community, the lower the level of trust; and (4) the greater the social
change, the lower the trust. With these assumptions, Anderson is able to
hypothesize that trust declines in contexts of rapid change, increased het-
erogeneity, decrease in interaction frequency, and an increase of outsiders.
Indeed, he notes a parallel with writings in medical literature on informed
consent.
Anderson then considers what happens to family relationships in a
context of declining trust. He finds that as trust declines, so also does:
willingness to enter long-run relationships; the length of the time-span
within which reciprocity in exchange is expected; the size of kinship net-
works; and the amount of aid given across the networks. Furthermore, he
finds that as trust dedines: calculative attitudes toward relationships in-
crease; the probability of terminating the relationship increases; and the
probability of bureaucratic solutions increases. Indeed, if trust declines
below the barent acceptable level, generalized exchange networks eventu-
ally collapse completely. In that case, the kinship group ceases to function
and individuals are threatened with an atomistic existence.
In these treatments of trust by Bok, Lieberman, Frankel, and An-
derson, we are not to suppose that trust is gullibility. As we discussed at
the begmning of this paper, trust always functions within limits posed by
 Trust as Reality / 981

specific situational conditions. In an analysis of the dynamics of democ-

racy, Vivien Hart addresses the age-old paradox that democracy assumes
that humans can govern themselves and yet depends on the proper dash
of suspicion about those in power if it is to function successfully. The
perception of "a discrepancy between the ideals and realities of the politi-
cal process" is seen by Hart as functional political distrust (xi). An in-
formed democratic citizenry, then, retains both adequate distrust of indi-

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vidual politicians, and an abiding trust in the political system itself. The
Watergate phenomenon may be the hallmark historica) exemplar of this
distinction for the United States. This kind of distrust is analyzed by Hart
as a cognitive and normative reality within attitudes of the citizenry. As
-

such, we conceptualize it as a derivative of the more emergent and under-

lying assumption of trust as a social reality. The deep sociological question
becomes: How much citizen distrust would it take to produce a "run on
the state house" and a revolutionary change of the system itself? Just as
there is a breaking point in distrust in the monetary system, at which
point investors and debt holders run on the banks or aggrieved clients run
to the courts for redress, so too, a weakening of trust may lead to even
more profound changes in the politica) system. 4
At our present state of knowledge about the dynamics of trust, we
have no answers to these deep questions. We do have, however, a theo-
retical suggestion and a promising empirical lead. The theoretical sugges-
tion comes from Parsons in a discussion of trust within the professional
complex and specifically between professional and client. Parsons (e) ar-
gues that trust is more basic to the constitution of a solidary group than
even a sense of moral obligation or derivative factors such as economic
inducement or administrative power (and see Lorber). In the professional—
client relationship, trust is more basic because of the "competence gap"
that exists between the two parties. Since the layperson cannot validate
the competence or integrity of the professional, s/he can only trust to
some degree in. the professional. Parsons (e) touches on four conditions
that generate trust: (1) all participants must believé that action is aimed at
common values like health or education; (2) these common values must be
"translatable into common goals;" such as curing this patient; (3) each
participant's expectations must generally fit into his or her general set of
solidary involvement, since everyone is more than a mere patient or doc-
tor; (4) participants' trust must be reasonable in light of relevant empirical
information, for example, an infamous incompetent doctor forfeits the
trust that would typically be assumed in the situation. To generate trust,
then, these four conditions must be realized by an adequate symbolic rep-
resentation of the competence and integrity of the professional. In normal
situations, these four conditions act to reenforce each other and to gener-
ate a trust that then acquires sufficient autonomy and controls the behav-
ior of both the client and the professional. Such autonomous trust then
982 / Social Forces Volume 63:4, June 1985

becomes an unexamined assumption to all such situations to which par-

ticipants are socialized and which governs their moral expectations, so
that professionals are typically "trustworthy" and clients typically trust
them.
The emergence of the movement to obtain voluntary informed con-
sent from patients before doctors carry out risky procedures has focused
on the issue of trust. Barber argues that there are two sets of values vying

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for control in the doctor—patient relationship, the dominance and collegial
models. Both focus on the need for trust, but those enacting a dominance
relationship argue that a patient should simply have total trust in the
doctor because of "the doctor's self-ascribed competence" (a,60). Relying
on the work of Freidson, Barber suggests that trust may be based on a
model of persuasion through shared information rather than "authori-
tarian fiat." To the extent that patients prefer the collegial model whereas
doctors prefer the dominance model, the first condition that Parsons iden-
tified, common values, is weakened. So too, trust is likely to be weakened,
and we would enter the litigious spiral traced by Lieberman.

Summary Remarks

In conclusion, we fmd that these relatively recent and generally unrelated

treatments of trust as a social reality point to the need for a formalized and
integrated sociological theory of trust. They corroborate Luhmann's and
Barber's insistence on the necessity of a kind and degree of trust adequate
to the tasks, complexity, and scope of the system's functioning. Further-
more, unlike the reductionistic conceptualizations and investigations of
trust produced by behavioral psychologists and others, these studies give
recognition and substance to the contention that trust is a quintessentially
social reality that penetrates not only individual psyches but also the
whole institutional fabric of society. Indeed, we would assert that the
"trust which undergirds our everyday lives is a pure social construction
which answers to our need for security by seeming to be a fact when it is
always a projected assumption" (Weigert,a,82). The theoretical synthesis
of these and future sociological investigations of trust presages deeper
insight into the foundations of social order and the workings of contempo-
rary society.

Notes
1. Luhmann's theory of trust is greatly indebted to the earlier work of Simmel and Parsons.
Although we lack the space to review here their sociological analyses of trust, it may be
noted that Luhmann has brilliantly combined the micro- and macro-levels of perspectives on
trust represented by Simmel and Parsons, respectively (see Lewis and Weigert,b).
 Trust as Reality / 983

2. For a few examples of the massive number of PD and similar game experiments, see Boyle;
Evans; Kanouse and Wiest; Kelley and Strahelski,a,b; Loomis; Oskamp; Rapoport and Or-
want; Tedeschi et al.; Tubbs; Wallace and Rothaus.
3. Worchel has stated that, with few exceptions (Deutsch,e; Wrightsman), attempts to bring
together these two operationalizations of trust by predicting behavior (e.g., PD game actions
as in Schlenker et al.) on the basis of Rotter ITS or other personality measures have been
largely unsuccessful.
4. For example, although the dominant paradigm of international relations gives priority to

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the self-interests of each party as the main motivating force, international negotiators must
also make assessments of whom they can trust, as Kissinger and Carter comment in their
memoirs. We thank Michael Francis for this observation which supports Luhmann's dictum
that system trust ultimately depends on personal trust.

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