Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Definitions of Trust: From
Conceptual Components
to the General Core
In this chapter we will present a thorough review of the predominant definitions of trust in the
literature, with the purpose of showing that, in cognitive and social sciences, there is not yet a
shared or prevailing, and clear and convincing notion of
trust
. Not surprisingly, this appalling
situation has engendered frequent and diffuse complaints.
1
However, the fact that the use of
the term
trust
and its analytical definition are confused and often inaccurate should not become
an unconscious alibi, a justification for abusing this notion, applying it in any
ad hoc
way,
without trying to understand if, beyond the various specific uses and limited definitions,
there
is some common deep meaning, a conceptual core to be enlightened
.
On the contrary, most authors working on trust provide their own definition, which frequently
is not really general but rather tailored for a specific domain (commerce, politics, technology,
organization, security, etc.). Moreover, even definitions aimed at being general and endowed
with some cross-domain validity are usually incomplete or redundant: either they miss or leave
implicit and give for presupposed some important components of trust, or they attribute to the
general notion something that is just accidental and domain-specific.
The consequence is that there is very little overlapping among the numerous definitions of
trust, while a strong common conceptual kernel for characterizing the general notion has yet to
emerge. So far the literature offers only partial convergences and 'family resemblances' among
different definitions, i.e. some features and terms may be common to a subset of definitions
but not to other subsets.
This topic aims to counteract such a pernicious tendency, and tries to provide
a general,
abstract, and domain-independent notion and model of trust
.
1
See for example Mutti (1987: 224): 'the number of meanings attributed to the idea of trust in social analysis is
disconcerting. Certainly this deplorable state of things is the product of a general
theoretical negligence
. It is almost
as if, due to some strange self-reflecting mechanism, social science has ended up losing its own trust in the possibility
of considering trust in a significant way'.
