Definitions of Trust: From Conceptual Components to the General Core - Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model - page 12

Trust Mental State

Which relationships?

Trust Action

Y

X

Figure 1.1 The double nature of Trust, as psychological attitude and as act. The relationship between
these two elements needs much exploration

and meanings of trust (see Figure 1.1):

(a) Trust as psychological attitude of X towards Y relative to some possible desirable behavior
or feature.
(b) Trust as the decision and the act of relying on , counting on, depending on Y .

In our theory there is a twofold connection between these two types of trust:

The conceptual link in that the intension of (b) contains (a) , i.e. trust as an attitude is part
of the concept of trust as a decision/action. Obviously, the extension of (a) , i.e. the set of
cases where there is such a mental attitude, includes the extension of (b) , i.e. the set of acts
of trusting someone or something.
The process/causal link in that (a) is the temporal presupposition (an antecedent) and a
con-cause of (b) . The process for arriving at the act of trusting entails the formation of such
a positive expectation on and evaluation of Y. 7

This provides us with the dyadic general notion of trust, capable of connecting together
the two basic meanings of this phenomenon. 8 Revolving around this common core, there are
then several domain-related specifications of trust: subcategories and/or situational forms of
trust, due to the sub-specification of its arguments (the kind of trustor or of trustee; the kind
of action; the kind of results), or to different contexts that make relevant some specific reason
of trust (like interest, commitment, or contract) or some specific quality of the trustee (like
sympathy, honesty, friendship, common values).

7 Without the psychological attitude (a) there might be delegation but not trust: An obliged, constrained, needed,
(may be) desperate delegation/reliance but not trust.
8 One might more subtly distinguish (see (Falcone and Castelfranchi, 2001b)) between the mere decision to trust
and the actual act of trusting. In this case the definition of trust becomes three-layered, involving a three-steps process
(Chapter 2). One might also argue that there is trust as a social relation, in consequence of the act of trusting or of a
trustful or distrustful attitude towards someone else. This is certainly true, so one might enrich a layered definition of
trust along the lines suggested by these considerations.