CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we described the critical role that trust and distrust play in relationships. We reviewed some of the basic research on trust and elaborated on the types of trust that exist in most interpersonal relationships.
We suggested that trust and distrust coexist in most relationships, that trust and distrust can be calculus based or identification based, and that relationships differ in form and character as a function of the relative weight of the two types of trust in the relationship. Finally, we suggested that managing any relationship requires us to both create trust and manage distrust effectively. These processes are most critical when trust is broken and needs to be repaired. A great deal of research remains to be done on these propositions, but we hope that the ideas proposed in this chapter serve to move this work forward.Notes
1. The author wishes to thank Carolyn Wiethoff for her contribution to the first edition draft of this chapter.
2. Results of such incremental trust development are seen even in the neuroscience literature. In one study, researchers found that as parties played a game of economic reciprocity and one party gained a reputation for trustworthy choices, the other’s intention to make a reciprocal trusting choice and actual trust decision could be tracked through changes in brainwaves in the dorsal striatum (King- Casas, Tomlin, Anen, Camerer, Quartz, and Montague, 2005).
3. In earlier work, Lewicki and Bunker (1995, 1996) identified knowledge-based trust as a separate trust. We now believe that knowledge is a dimension of relationships, along which people move from uncertainty to confidence about the other's intentions, motivations, and behaviors.
4. This is an important point. If CBD is high, we believe that parties are likely to leave the relationship—assuming the interdependence between them and the other is not required and they have viable alternative ways of getting their needs met (Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1981; Lewicki, Saunders, and Minton, 1999; Thibaut and Kelley, 1959).
5. Although we do not have empirical evidence to support it at this writing, our belief is that expectation violations function much like the Chutes-and-Ladders process we described in discussing calculus-based trust. Thus, the impact of expecting trust and experiencing distrust is more disconfirming and distressing than expecting distrust and encountering trust. Expecting trust and having it violated in a high- trust environment is more disruptive than encountering trust in a high-distrust environment (Lewicki and Bunker, 1996). To our knowledge, no research has been done on reactions to expecting distrust and experiencing trust.
6. Although we indicated that trust violations can occur in both directions, we discuss only violations of trusting expectations, and not violations of distrusting expectations.
7. Both theory and research on this subject are currently unclear about whether trust is actually repaired or restored. Most research simply looks at changes in trust following efforts to repair a trust violation. It is still unclear whether rebuilt or restored trust is significantly different in structure and character from trust that has never been violated.