TRUST AND UNCERTAINTY: THE EMOTIONAL BASIS OF RATIONALITY Jack Barbalet Sociology University of Leicester

Trust and Uncertainty What is trust? Risk or uncertainty The basis of trust Trust as an emotion Trust and social capital Trust and rationality

What is Trust? Not control but dependency – acceptance of dependence on another In the absence of pertinent knowledge Bridges present and future – anticipates a future outcome it creates

What is Trust? Trustworthiness of the other not an efficacious condition of trust Trust necessarily faces risk and uncertainty Fundamental uncertainty – ‘information about future events cannot be known at the moment of decision … and cannot be inferred’

Risk or uncertainty Sociological literature – modernity and risk Economics literature – calculability of risk

Risk or uncertainty Trust in markets overcomes friction of transaction costs Efficient lubricant as implicit contract Fundamental uncertainty → calculable risk

Risk or uncertainty Statistical probability and gambling Invariant existing system with set rules Real world – inherent uncertainty of unknowable futures Keynes – paradigm of risk: whistling in the dark

The basis of trust Forced option – no possibility of not choosing Either A trusts B to achieve C, or A cannot have C Emotional nature of trust

Trust as an emotion Not all emotions are labile and disruptive, but may be calm and organizing May not be conscious of (back-grounded) emotions as emotions Emotions may underscore values, interests and meanings – rational

Trust as an emotion Trust as feelings of positive expectation and safe dependency Trust is a feeling of confidence in another’s future actions and also … … confidence concerning one’s own judgement of another

Trust and social capital Social capital a public never a private good Social capital a ‘moral resource’ – increases with use, diminishes with disuse Trust as a form of social capital?

Trust and social capital Trust is non-transitive Transitivity: if A trusts B, and B trusts C, then A will trust C. But … B’s trusting C may lead A to re- evaluate whether B should be trusted

Trust and rationality Trust is based on expectation not calculation …yet it is nonetheless rational to trust trust Distinguish between formal and substantive rationality