Concluding Remarks and Pointers - Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model - page 355

than a mapping of chemical activations), unable of really playing a role in a detailed and
'usable' prediction and description of the phenomenon. Without this mediation (psycological
interpretation) localization or biochemistry say nothing .
For example, in addition to the clear general mechanism established by the study of Kosfeld
et al. about a social predisposition of trusting behavior based on the oxytocin released, it also
seems clear how the differences of the emotional part of trust among human individuals, in
the same situation, can be explained by the different physiological functions of these release
mechanisms. In our cognitive theory of trust these facts can be taken into account by the role
played from the different thresholds of the model (one of the few parts that in our model includes
the emotional component of trust; see Chapters 3 and 5), where the rationality describes only
the macro attitudes (the general trends) and the fine-grained differences are due to the various
subjectivities.
At the same time, the role of influence and guide of the rational, deliberative, belief-based
process on the final trusting behaviour, also interacting and sometimes overlapping on the
release mechanism of oxytocin should be also analyzed. The necessity of a socio-cognitive
model of trust for a strict interaction, comparison and guidance (in both directions from the
experimental results to the model and viceversa) would be really interesting.
It could be possible to experiment with the different trustor's beliefs on the trustee's basic
features, evaluating how these beliefs (about individual willingness, individual competence or
class, category, group membership, and so on) influence the trusting behavior of the trustor.
The same holds for the dynamical aspect of trust.
In sum, trust cannot be reduced to a simple, vague, unitary notion and activation: it is a
complex structure of representations, related feelings, dispositions, decisions, and actions.
The analytic (compound) model of this phenomenon should guide the brain research, which
otherwise looks rather blind, reductive, and merely suggestive.
13.3 Trust, Institutions, Politics (Some Pills of Reflection)
During these years of very serious financial, economic, and social crises 'trust' is every day
in the newspaper headlines or in the speeches of political leaders, as the crucial issue of the
crisis.
It seems in fact that trust is the engine of socio-economic development: there is a clear
awareness from the public institutions, from the social and economic authorities, that trust is
the glue of society (see Chapter 9). That if trust decreases to below a particular level, it could
compromise some relevant social function (for example, those based on implicit reciprocal
trust (see Chapter 4)). So many (public and private) actions are designed, planned and realized
to increase it, to elicite individual and collective trust in society.
A particularly interesting case is trust in politics and institutions. As we have said (Chapter
2) trust is structurally based on the achievement of some goal, interest, need, desire, objective,
etc. Without this motivational element there can not be trust. In the case of representative and
institutional entities, these goals are (or better, should be) relative to collective achievements,
public interests, ideal attainments. So the frustration of these achievements over a long duration
can have different solutions: all of them explainable through our socio-cognitive model of trust.
Let us show this very briefly and in a simplistic way.