The Affective and Intuitive Forms of Trust: The Confidence We Inspire - Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model - page 135

worried ( X could say: 'I am in your hands'; while Y would say 'Let yourself go, do not resist,
trust me').
It is very important to note - coherently with our model of trust - that it is not true that
in this kind of trust we (implicitly) evaluate/perceive only the good disposition, the good will
of the other; we also appraise his power (ability, competence): for example, for a feeling of
protection and safety, and for relying on the other as for being protected against bad guys with
a sense of safety, also the perception of his physical strength and character is crucial.
Notice how these possible affective components of trust are coherent and compatible with
our cognitive analysis of trust. However, they can also be independent of any judgment; they
can be just the affective, dispositional consequence of an intuitive appraisal (cf. Section 5.2)
and of learning. They can even be by default or just the result of lack of (bad) experiences, lack
of negative evaluations (Chapter 4). In fact, a bad experience with Y would be a bad 'surprise'
for X ; something one was not suspecting at all. There are no really subjectively 'rational'
justifications for that attitude, but it can be 'rational' in relation to a repeated experience or to
evolutionary adaptive functions.
5.7 Trust Disposition as an Emotion and Trust Action as an Impulse
An emotion or feeling is 'caused' by, elicited by, it is spontaneously arousing on the basis of
given beliefs (not only of 'stimuli', like for more simple and primitive emotions, like a very fast
reaction of startle and fear due to a terrible noise, before any understanding of it). The emotion
is the 'response' of our mind-body to a given (mental) event (the internal configuration of our
representation of the situation). Those beliefs are not 'reasons' for the affective reaction, like
they are 'reasons' for a believing or for a decision ('arguments').
This is our model of emotions in terms of 'cognitive anatomies', i.e. in terms of the specific
beliefs and goals that are needed for eliciting and entertaining that emotion, which are necessary
constituents, ingredients, but also bases for it. We would say that certain beliefs are the causes,
the triggers of a feeling of shame, guilt, etc. and from an external point of view, they are also
the 'reasons' for that emotion, but not from the internal, subjective point of view: emotions
have no 'reasons' in the strict sense.
Feelings and emotions usually activate a goal (a behavioral tendency or a more abstract
desire to be translated into actions). For example, fear activates the goal of escaping, of being
safe; shame, the goal of disappearing; pity, the goal of being of help; guilt, the goals of
repairing, atoning, and not doing the same again.
We can accept trust as feelings, for the same kind of analysis:
a feeling, an affective response arousing from a given more or less explicit perception and
appraisal of the world;
an activated goal on the basis of this feeling and mental configuration.
We have also to remind our reader that in our model (as in several others), there is the
possibility that the relation and path from assumptions to feeling can be reversed: instead of
feeling fear because one sees or thinks that there is some danger, one can assume that there is
some danger just because one is feeling fear; using the sensation as a sort of (non 'rational')
'evidence'.