Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In Trust as 'disposition', 'attitude', evaluation of
Y
(before deciding to delegate or not,
before delegating)
Goals are not yet or necessarily pursued
: I evaluate 'potential' partners
or goods or services relative to a
possible
goal of mine, or relative to a goal of mine that I
have not yet decided if I want to achieve or pursue.
Saying that
X
trusts
Y
relatively to a given (possible) goal of her, does not necessarily mean
that she is actively
pursuing
a goal: on the one hand, she can be just evaluating a potential
delegation; on the other hand, she can be completely passive, just waiting and expecting.
In Trust, as decision and action, clearly that goal has become not only 'active' but 'pursued':
I want to realize it. However, it is pursued in a strange way: thanks to the action of another
agent; parasitically. It is
indirectly
'pursued'; perhaps I'm doing nothing, just expecting and
waiting for it to be realized thanks to
Y
's behavior.
When I do actively and personally pursue a Goal, this is a Goal in the reductive sense, and I
trust myself (self-trust, self-confidence; feeling able and competent, etc.).
This is the right, broad, scientific notion of 'goal' needed for the theory of Trust.
2.2.4 Trust Versus Trustworthiness
It is also fundamental to make clear the relationships between
trustworthiness
and
trust
;they
are frequently mixed up; in many cases we tend to use trust (
T
) instead of trustworthiness
(
TW
).
TW
is a property of
Y
(but in
relation
to a
potential
evaluator/partner
X
); while
T
is a
property of
X
(but in
relation
to
Y
).
On the one hand, there is an
objective TW
of
Y
(what he is actually able and willing to do in
standard conditions; his actual reliability on a more or less specific task, and so on). It is just
relative to this reliability that
X
's
T
can be
misplaced
and
X
's evaluation (belief) can be
wrong
.
On the other hand, there is a
perceived
, or evaluated, or
subjective TW
of
Y
for
X
:
X
TW
Y
.
Now, the relation between
X
TW
Y
and
X
's
T
in
Y
:
Trust
(
XY
)
15
is not simple. They cannot be
identified.
X
TW
Y
is one of the bases of
T
, but the latter cannot be reduced to the former.
T
is a
direct function of
X
TW
Y
, but not only of it.
T
is also a function of a factor of
X
's personality and
general trustworthy disposition (see (McKnight and Chervany, 2001)). Moreover,
T
depends
on the favorable or unfavorable ascription of the
plausibility
gap (lack of evidences); so the
perceived
X
TW
Y
is only one component of the positive evaluation (
T
attitude).
Of course,
X
TW
Y
is even more insufficient for defining and determining
T
's potential decision
and
T
's actual decision and act (see below and Chapter 3).
TW
is
multidimensional
; thus
X
TW
Y
is also a multidimensional evaluation and profile of
Y
,
and cannot be collapsed in just one number or measure. The same holds for trust. We will in
fact present a multi-dimensional model of
T
(and
TW
) (Section 2.2.6).
τ
2.2.5 Two Main Components: Competence Versus Predictability
The (
positive
)
evaluation
of
Y
has different aspects and is about different
qualities
of
Y
.The
most important dimensions for trust, that is, of
Y
's trustworthiness, are the following ones.
15
We consider
p
=
g
X
and do not consider here the context
C
.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search