Individuals, Interpersonal Relations, and Trust

In the analysis of trust, we are inevitably drawn to the complex two-way interrelationships between it, the economic and political fabric of society, and the individuals who constitute that society. On the one hand we may be concerned with its role in the creation of that fabric and its psychological impact on the individual, and on the other we may be concerned with how that fabric and the properties of those individuals can serve to maintain trust and any associated cooperative behaviours. While many of the authors in this volume have examined several aspects of these interrelationship, I will adopt a narrower focus and concentrate on two parts of the psychological literature which can contribute to our understanding of the individual as a trusting agent. The first of these is concerned with the conditions under which individuals are willing to trust one another in novel circumstances. This will be based mainly on laboratory studies of bargaining games in which the players can adopt either competitive or cooperative strategies. The second is concerned with factors which will affect the durability of trust. This will be based on various studies of the conditions under which an individual’s ideas become impervious to change and behaviour becomes routinized. Needless to say, the treatment of these two parts of the literature will be highly selective, and will ignore much of the fine detail in the attempt to frame a rather general picture. All of this will be prefaced by a consideration of the psychological consequences of trust for the individual, and a brief discussion of what I am taking trust to be.