The Economic Reductionism and Trust (Ir)rationality - Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model - page 247

doctors, even with no experience of them); a by default rule; an emotional activation; the
existence of a norm and of an authority; etc.
Second, because without an explicit theory of the cognitive basis of trust any theory of
persuasion/dissuasion, influence, signs and images for trust, deception, reputation, etc. is
not 'parsimonious' but is simply empty .

Let's suppose (referring to Williamson's example) that there is a girl walking in the park
in the night with a guy; she is perceived by her father as under risk of assault. The father of
that girl (Mr. Brown) is an anxious father; he also has a son from the same school as the guy
G accompanying the girl. Will he ask his son What is the probability that G will assault your
sister?' or 'How many times has G assaulted a girl?” or “ ... Has some student of your college

assauledt a girl?' .
We do not think so. He will ask his son what he knows about G , if he has an evalu-
ation/information about G 's education, his character, his morality, his family, etc. He's not
asking rhetorical questions or simply being polite. He is searching for some specific and factual
information upon which to found his prediction/expectation about risk. Coleman (Coleman,
1994) too stresses the importance of information, but he is not able to derive from this the
right theoretical consequences: a view of trust also in terms of justified cognitive evaluations
and expectations. In his theory one cannot explain or predict which information is pertinent
and why. For example, why is the artistic talent of G or the color of his car irrelevant?
Now, why those questions? Which is the relevance of those data/beliefs about Y for the
prediction about a possible violence? Which is the relationship between Y 's 'virtues', 'quali-
ties' ( trustworthiness ) and the prediction or better positive ' expectation ' about Y 's behavior?
'Trust' is precisely this relationship . Trust is not just reducible to the strength of a prediction:
to the 'subjective probability' of a favorable event. Trust is not just a belief, or worst the
degree/strength of any belief. It is a grounded belief strength (either rationally justified or
affect-based), and not of any belief, but of a belief about the action of an(other) agent, and a
component of a 'positive expectation'. Is Williamson's theory able to explain and predict this
relation? In his framework subjective probability and risk are unprincipled and ungrounded
notions . What the notion of trust (its cognitive analysis) adds to this framework is precisely
the explicit theory of the ground and (more or less rational) support of the actor's expectation,
i.e. the theory of a specific set of beliefs and evaluations about G (the trustee) and about the
environmental circumstances, and possibly even of the emotional appraisal of both, such that
an actor makes a given estimation of probability of success or failure, and decides whether to
rely and depend on G or not.
Analogously, what can one do within Williamson's framework to act upon the probability
(either objective or subjective)? Is there any rational and principled way? He can just touch
wood or use exorcism or self-suggestion to try to modify this magic number of the predicted
probability. Why and how should, for example, information about 'honesty' change my per-
ceived risk and my expected probability of an action of G ? Why and how should, for example,
training, friendship, promises, a contract, norms, 18 or control, and so on, affect (increase) the
probability of a given successful action and my estimation of it? It remains unexplained.

18 How and why 'regulation can serve to infuse trading confidence (i.e. trust) into otherwise problematic trading
relations' as Williamson reminds us by citing Goldberg and Zucker ((Williamson, 1985) p. 268).