Construct · 6 fields · 11 citations

Where does trust collide?

One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.

● jingle · one name, five constructs Nearest construct by meaningtrust in technologycompare the meanings
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Every construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to trust is trust in technology.

Hold this as a prompt, not a verdict. Two constructs sitting close in meaning is a reason to read them side by side and decide for yourself whether they are one idea under two names. It is not proof that they are. Compare the meanings in the Collider.

TRAIT VS STATE · MOST-POOLEDSURVEY ≠ GAME (GLAESER 2000)trust6 CONSTRUCTSOrg. behaviorVULNERABILITY · ABCPersonalityTRAIT · GENERALIZEDBehavioral econ.BEHAVIOR · $ SENTPolitical scienceGENERALIZED · AGGREGATESecurityASSUMED · NOT VERIFIEDTrustLEE · HUMAN FACTORS

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2026

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Organizational behavior

the willingness of one party to be vulnerable to another's actions, expecting them to perform an important action.

The willingness of one party to be vulnerable to the actions of another, based on the expectation that the other will perform an action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control them. Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman separated trust (the willingness) from trustworthiness (the trustee's ability, benevolence, and integrity) and from the trustor's propensity, three things that a single "trust" item cannot tell apart. Rousseau and colleagues' cross-disciplinary review settled on nearly the same core: a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability.[1][2]

Unit
A dyad, a trustor and a specific trustee
Recovery means
Restored willingness to be vulnerable after a violation; repair is a distinct literature
Measured by
Multi-item self-report about a named referent; ability/benevolence/integrity subscales

Personality & social psychology

a stable, general expectancy that the word or promise of others can be relied on.

A generalized expectancy that the word or promise of others can be relied on, a stable disposition, not a judgment about anyone in particular. Rotter's Interpersonal Trust Scale asks about politicians, salespeople, parents, and the news, and averages across them; a high scorer trusts in general. This is what Mayer et al. later renamed propensity, precisely to keep it apart from trust in a specific person.[3]

Unit
A person, across referents
Recovery means
Not modeled, a trait
Measured by
Likert self-report across many referents; Rotter ITS
Scales indexed for this construct
  • Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS)Rotter, J. B., 1967 · generalized expectancy that others' promises can be relied on25 items

Behavioral & experimental economics

the amount a first mover sends in the investment game, knowing it is tripled and nothing obliges a return.

The amount a first mover sends to an anonymous second mover in the investment ("trust") game, knowing it will be tripled and that nothing obliges the receiver to return any of it. Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe defined trust by the act (a costly transfer under no enforcement) and reciprocity by what comes back. Glaeser and colleagues then showed the standard survey question ("generally speaking, can most people be trusted?") does not predict the amount sent; it predicts the amount returned.[4][5]

Unit
A decision in a one-shot game
Recovery means
Not modeled, one shot
Measured by
Money sent as a fraction of endowment; money returned

Political science & sociology

the share of a population who say most people can be trusted, treated as a stock of social capital.

A property of societies rather than persons: the share of a population who say most people can be trusted, treated as a stock of social capital that lowers transaction costs and supports institutions. Putnam's argument about American civic decline rests on the trend in this one survey item. Luhmann, from a different tradition, treated trust as a mechanism for reducing social complexity (a way of acting as if the future were more certain than it is) and separated personal trust from system trust in money, law, and expertise.[6][7]

Unit
A population, region, or country
Recovery means
Rebuilt over generations; institutional reform
Measured by
The generalized-trust item in the GSS, WVS, and ESS; institutional-trust batteries

Computer security

reliance on a component without checking it, such that its failure or subversion can break the system's security.

A component is trusted when its failure or subversion can break the security of the system, that is, when you are relying on it without checking. Thompson's point was that the trust is unavoidable and regresses without end: you cannot verify the compiler that compiled the compiler. Blaze and colleagues turned it into an engineering object, a policy language for deciding which keys may authorize which actions; NIST's zero-trust architecture makes the inversion explicit: every request is verified because nothing is trusted by location.[8][9][10]

Unit
A component, principal, or request
Recovery means
Revocation and re-verification; in zero trust, every access is re-evaluated
Measured by
Membership in a trusted computing base; policy evaluation outcomes; attestation

Human factors

trust in automation, the attitude that an automated agent will help a person reach their goals, which guides how much they rely on it.

In human factors, trust refers to trust in automation, the attitude that an automated agent will help a person reach their goals, which guides how much they rely on it. This meaning comes from Lee (2004) in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.[11]

Unit
Recovery means
Measured by

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Nearby collisions

loyalty6 fields · 10 citationsjingle · one name, six constructsrisk6 fields · 13 citationsjingle · one name, six constructsengagement8 fields · 13 citationsjingle · one name, seven constructstrust in technology4 names · 4 citationsjangle · one construct, many names

References

  1. Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1995.9508080335
  2. Rousseau, D. M., Sitkin, S. B., Burt, R. S., & Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: A cross-discipline view of trust. Academy of Management Review, 23(3), 393–404. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1998.926617
  3. Rotter, J. B. (1967). A new scale for the measurement of interpersonal trust. Journal of Personality, 35(4), 651–665. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1967.tb01454.x
  4. Berg, J., Dickhaut, J., & McCabe, K. (1995). Trust, reciprocity, and social history. Games and Economic Behavior, 10(1), 122–142. https://doi.org/10.1006/game.1995.1027
  5. Glaeser, E. L., Laibson, D. I., Scheinkman, J. A., & Soutter, C. L. (2000). Measuring trust. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(3), 811–846. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355300554926
  6. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. Simon & Schuster.
  7. Luhmann, N. (1979). Trust and power. Wiley.
  8. Thompson, K. (1984). Reflections on trusting trust. Communications of the ACM, 27(8), 761–763. https://doi.org/10.1145/358198.358210
  9. Blaze, M., Feigenbaum, J., & Lacy, J. (1996). Decentralized trust management. In Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (pp. 164–173). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/SECPRI.1996.502679
  10. Rose, S., Borchert, O., Mitchell, S., & Connelly, S. (2020). Zero trust architecture (NIST Special Publication 800-207). National Institute of Standards and Technology. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-207
  11. Lee, J. D., & See, K. A. (2004). Trust in Automation: Designing for Appropriate Reliance. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 46(1), 50-80. https://doi.org/10.1518/hfes.46.1.50_30392

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