Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 2.4
Conditional Trust
IF
Event (e)
=
true
THEN
Trust (X Y C
τ
g
X
) will be over the threshold for delegating
is context dependent, but if the context (environment) in the
mental model of
X
plays an active causal role,
X
has also to trust the context, as favorable or
not too adverse or even hostile (to
Y
or to
Not only the trust in
Y
as for
τ
). But, of course,
Y
's capacity and reliability may
vary with the more or less adverse nature of the context: it might decrease or even increase. On
this we have developed a specific section (see Chapter 6). This is also very important in trust
dynamics, since it is not true that a failure of
Y
necessarily will decrease
Y
's perceived trust-
worthiness for
X
; it depends on the causal attribution of the failure. The same holds for success.
Another important way in which the context is relevant for trust, is that there can be different
trusts about
Y
in different social contexts, related to the same task: for example,
Y
is a medical
doctor, and he is very well reputed among the clients, but not at all among his colleagues. Or
there can be different trusts in different social contexts because different
tasks
are relevant
in those contexts. For example,
Y
is a well reputed guy within his university (as teacher and
researcher), but has a very bad reputation in his apartment building (as an antisocial, not very
polite or clean, noisy guy).
Trust can migrate from one task to another, from one trustor to another, from one trustee
to another (see Chapter 6), and also from one social context to another. It depends on the
connections between the two contexts: are they part of one another? Are they connected in
a social network? Do they share people, values, tasks, etc.? So, trust is not only a context
dependent and sensible phenomenon but is a context-dynamic phenomenon.
Moreover, not only is trust context-dependent but it can also be
conditional
: A special event
(
e
) could be considered by
X
, in a given context and with respect to a specific trustee, as crucial
for trusting
Y
(see Table 2.3).
Consider our example of a bus stop, in weak delegation. After
Y
raised his arm to stop
the bus the driver is more sure that he will take the bus. In our view, this is not just simple
'conditional' probability (after
the first event
, or given condition
C
, the probability of
the
second event
is greater or smaller). In real trust - given its attributional nature - the
first event
can be interpreted by
X
as a
signal
. For example, a given act or attitude or sentence of
Y
can be a
sign for
X
of
Y
's capacity or of his internal disposition, which makes his doing
τ
τ
more reliable.
2.11
Genuine
Social Trust: Trust and
Adoption
As we saw trust is not only a 'social' attitude. It can be directed towards an artifact or
unanimated process. Someone would prefer another term, say
confidence
, but this is just a
(reasonable) technical convention, not the real use and meaning of these words.
50
However, it
is true that the most theoretically and practically relevant and the most typical notion of trust
is the social one
.
Social trust
means
trust towards another autonomous agent perceived (conceived) as such.
That is, towards a purposive, self-governed system, not only with its own resources and
50
Moreover, 'confidence' is very close to 'trust' in a non-technical meaning, it just seems to contain some reliance,
and be quite social. It also seems to be based just on learning and experience.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search