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17 - Trust and the Variety of Its Bases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

By
Barbara A. Misztal
Edited by
Peter Kivisto
Peter Kivisto
Affiliation:
Augustana College, Illinois
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Summary

After emphasizing the importance of trust as a fundamental aspect of our interpersonal and institutional dealings with other people, the chapter reviews the main sociological theories of trust and its social bases.Starting from the assumption that trust is a multifaceted phenomenon, it discusses two dominant theoretical explanations on trust production and its deficit.The first stream is a broadly normative-cultural approach that conceptualizes trust as a means of transcending uncertainty, while the second perspective is based on rational choice that roots self-interest as the fundamental basis of trust.In the final part of the essay, after discussion of the importance of trust in reducing vulnerability, it is argued that by bringing rational and emotional foundations of trust together, we can begin to master trust-related mechanisms for reducing human vulnerability, and hence increasing our well-being.

Emotion, interest, rational choice, risk, trust vulnerability

Barbara A. Misztal is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the School of Media, Communication, and Sociology, University of Leicester.She has published on the topics of trust, memory, informality, vulnerability, multiple normalities, public intellectuals, political change, forgiveness, and later life.Currently she is researching narratives that make sense of the public sphere.

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The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory , pp. 333 - 353
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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