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Whenever deciding to depend on
Y
for achieving
O
,
X
is exposed both to failure (not
fulfilling
O
) and to additional harms, since there are intrinsic costs in the act of reliance,
as well as retreats to possible alternatives, potential damages inflicted by
Y
while
X
is not
defended, and so on. As we will discuss more thoroughly in the next chapters, all these risks
are direct consequences of
X
's decision to trust
Y
.
As for the terms
Competence
and
Willingness
, they identify the two basic prototypical
features of 'active'
3
trust in Y
, i.e. the two necessary components of the positive evaluation
of
Y
that qualify trust:
-
The belief of
X
(evaluation and expectation) that
Y
is
competent
(able, informed, expert,
skilled) for effectively doing
and produce
O
;
-
The belief of
X
(evaluation and expectation) that
Y
is
willing
to do
α
α
, intends and is
committed to do
- and notice that this is precisely what makes an agent
Y
predictable
and reliable for
X
. Obviously this feature holds only when
Y
is a cognitive, intentional
agent. It is in fact just a specification of a more abstract component that is
Y
's
predictability
:
the belief that '
Y
will actually do
α
α
and/or produce
O
', contrasted with merely having the
potentiality for doing so.
In sum, a good definition of trust, and the related analytical model that supports it, must
be able to explicitly account for two kinds of relationships between the different components
of this multi-layered notion:
conceptual/logical links
, and
process/causal links
. A mere list of
relevant features is not enough, not even when complemented with frequency patterns.
More specifically, a satisfactory definition should be able to answer the following questions:
1. What are the relevant connections between the overall phenomenon of trust and its specific
ingredients? Why are the latter within the former, and how does the former emerge from
the latter?
2. What are the pair-wise relations between different features of trust? For instance, how do
belief
and
expectation
,or
outcome
and
reliance
, interact with each other?
3. What is the conceptual link and the process relationship between trust as attitude (
belief
,
evaluation
,
expectation
) and trust as decision and action (relying on, accepting, making
oneself vulnerable, depending, etc.)?
1.2 Missed Components and Obscure Links
The content analysis of 72 definitions presented in the previous section reveals some relevant
gaps in such definitions, as well as several notions that remain largely or completely implicit.
An aspect absolutely necessary but frequently ignored (or at least left unstated) is
the goal,
the need,
relative to which and for the achievement of which the trustor counts upon the trustee.
3
As we will discuss later on (Chapter 2, Section 2.4), we distinguish between
active trust
and
passive trust
.The
former is related to the delegation of a positive action to
Y
, and to the expectation of obtaining the desired outcome
from this action. The latter, instead, is just reduced to the expectation of receiving no harm from
Y
, no aggression: it
is the belief that
Y
will not do anything dangerous for me, hence I do not need to be alerted, to monitor
Y
's behavior,
to avoid something, to protect myself. This passive trust has a third, more primitive component: the idea or feeling
that “there is nothing to worry about”, “I am/feel safe with
Y
”.
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