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What is Trust? A Multidisciplinary Review, Critique, and Synthesis
Author(s) -
Robbins Blaine G.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/soc4.12391
Subject(s) - conceptualization , multidisciplinary approach , sociology , epistemology , trustworthiness , everyday life , cognition , psychology , engineering ethics , social science , social psychology , computer science , philosophy , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , engineering
Despite decades of interdisciplinary research on trust, the literature remains fragmented and balkanized with little consensus regarding its origins. This review documents how this came to be and attempts to offer a solution. Specifically, it evaluates issues of conceptualization found in the trust literature. I recommend that we move away from varieties of trust – multidimensional conceptualizations of trust – and toward a single trust concept built around four essential properties: actor A's beliefs, actor B's trustworthiness, the matter(s) at hand, and unknown outcomes. I finish the article by proposing a synthetic structural‐cognitive theoretical framework for investigating the causes and consequences of trust in everyday life.