WHY IS TRUST CRITICAL TO RELATIONSHIPS?

There are many types of relationship, and it can be assumed that the nature of trust and its development are not the same in all the types. In this chapter, we discuss two basic types: professional and personal relationships.

An effort to describe professional relationship development in a business con­text was proposed by Shapiro, Sheppard, and Cheraskin (1992). Those authors suggest that three types of trust operate in developing a business relationship: deterrence-based trust, knowledge-based trust, and identification-based trust. In recent papers, Lewicki and Bunker (1995, 1996) adopted these three types of trust and made several major additions and modifications to the paper by Shapiro, Sheppard, and Cheraskin (1992). These ideas are briefly presented below; you are encouraged to consult these papers for a richer and fuller description of each type of trust and how it is proposed that the types are linked together in a developmental sequence.

Calculus-Based Trust

Shapiro, Sheppard, and Cheraskin (1992) identified the first type as “deterrence­based trust.” They argued that this form of trust is based in ensuring consis­tency of behavior; simply put, individuals do what they promise because they fear the consequences of not doing what they say. Like any behavior based on a theory of deterrence, trust is sustained to the degree that the deterrent (punishment) is clear, possible, and likely to occur if the trust is violated.

Lewicki and Bunker (1995, 1996) called this form calculus-based trust (CBT). We argued that deterrence-based trust is grounded not only in the fear of pun­ishment for violating the trust, but also in the rewards to be derived from preserving it. This kind of trust is an ongoing, market-oriented, economic cal­culation whose value is determined by the outcomes resulting from creating and sustaining the relationship relative to the costs of maintaining or severing it. Compliance with calculus-based trust is often ensured both by the rewards of being trusting (and trustworthy) and by the “threat” that if trust is violated, one’s reputation can be hurt through the person’s network of friends and asso­ciates. Even if you are not an honest person, having a reputation for honesty (or trustworthiness) is a valuable asset that most people want to maintain. So even if there are opportunities to be untrustworthy, any short-term gains from untrustworthy acts must be balanced, in a calculus-based way, against the long­term benefits from maintaining a good reputation.

The most appropriate metaphor for the growth of CBT is the children’s game Chutes and Ladders. Progress is made on the game board by throwing the dice and moving ahead (“up the ladder”) in a stepwise fashion. However, a player landing on a “chute” is quickly dropped back a large number of steps. Similarly, in calculus-based trust, forward progress is made by climbing the ladder, or building trust, slowly and stepwise. People prove through simple actions that they are trustworthy, and similarly, by systematically testing the other’s trust.² In contrast, a single event of inconsistency or unreliability may “chute” the relationship back several steps—or, in the worst case, back to square one. Thus, CBT is often quite partial and fragile.

The dynamics of this trust development may not be as rational as this description suggests.

Identification-Based Trust

While CBT is usually the first, early stage in developing more intimate personal relationships, it often leads to a second type of trust, based on identification with the other’s desires and intentions. This type of trust exists because the par­ties can effectively understand and appreciate one another’s wants. This mutual understanding is developed to the point that each person can effectively act for the other. Identification-based trust (IBT) thus permits a party to serve as the other’s agent and substitute for the other in interpersonal transactions (Deutsch, 1949). Both parties can be confident that their interests are fully protected, and that no ongoing surveillance or monitoring of one another is necessary. A true affirmation of the strength of IBT between parties can be found when one party acts for the other even more zealously than the other might demonstrate, such as when a good friend dramatically defends you against a minor insult.

A corollary of this “acting for each other” in IBT is that as the parties come to know³ each other better and identify with the other, they also understand more clearly what they must do to sustain the other’s trust.

Thus, IBT develops as one both knows and predicts the other’s needs, choices, and preferences, and as one also shares some of those same needs, choices, and preferences as one’s own. Increased identification enables us to think like the other, feel like the other, and respond like the other. A collective identity devel­ops; we empathize strongly with the other and incorporate parts of their psyche into our own identity (needs, preferences, thoughts, and behavior patterns). This form of trust can develop both in working relationships if the parties come to know each other very well, but it is most likely to occur in intimate, personal relationships. Moreover, this form of trust stabilizes relationships during periods of conflict and negativity. Thus, when high trusting parties engage in conflict, they tend to see the best in their partner’s motives because they make different attributions about the conflict compared to low trusting parties. The determinant of whether relationships maintain or dissolve in a conflict may be due to the attributions parties make about the other’s motives, determined by the existing level of trust (Miller and Rempel, 2004).

Music is a suitable metaphor for IBT, as in the harmonizing of a barbershop quartet. The parties learn to sing in a harmony that is integrated and complex. Each knows the others’ vocal range and pitch; each singer knows when to lead and follow; and each knows how to work with the others to maximize their strengths, compensate for their weaknesses, and create a joint product that is much greater than the sum of its parts. The unverbalized, synchronous chem­istry of a cappella choirs, string quartets, cohesive work groups, or championship basketball teams are excellent examples of this kind of trust in action.

Trust and Relationships: An Elaboration of Our Views

In addition to our views of these two forms of trust, we need to introduce two ideas about trust and relationships. The first is that trust and distrust are not simply opposite ends of the same dimension, but conceptually different and separate. Second, relationships develop over time, and the nature of trust changes as they develop.

Trust and Distrust Are Fundamentally Different. In addition to identifying types of trust, Lewicki, McAllister, and Bies (1998) have recently argued that trust and distrust are fundamentally different from each other, rather than merely more or less of the same thing (see also Ullman-Margalit, 2004). Although trust can be defined as “confident positive expectations regarding another’s conduct,” distrust can indeed be “confident negative expectations” regarding another’s conduct (Lewicki, McAllister, and Bies, 1998). Thus, just as trust implies belief in the other, a tendency to attribute virtuous intentions to the other, and willingness to act on the basis of the other’s conduct, distrust implies fear of the other, a tendency to attribute sinister intentions to the other, and desire to protect oneself from the effects of another’s conduct.

Relationships Are Developmental and Multifaceted. In discussing our views of the types of trust, we also pointed out that these forms of trust develop in different types of relationships.

All relationships develop as parties share experiences with each other and gain knowledge about the other. Every time we encounter another person, we gain a new or confirming experience that strengthens the relationship. If our experiences with another person are all within the same limited context (I know the server at the bakery because I buy my bagel and juice there every morning), then we gain little additional knowledge about the other (over time, I have a rich but very narrow range of experience with that server). However, if we encounter the other in different contexts (if I join a colleague to talk research, coteach classes, and play tennis), then this variety of shared experience is likely to develop into broader, deeper knowledge of the other.

People come to know each other in many contexts and situations. Conversely, they may trust the other in some contexts and distrust in others. You may have friends you would trust to babysit your child, but not to pay back money you loaned them. A relationship is made up of components of experience that one individual has with another. Within these relationships, some elements hold vary­ing degrees of trust, while others hold varying degrees of distrust. Our overall evaluation of the other person involves some complex judgment that weighs the scope of the relationship and elements of trust and distrust. Most people are able to be quite specific in describing both the trust and distrust elements in their rela­tionship. If the parties teach a class together, work together on a committee, play tennis together, and belong to the same church, the scope of their experience is much broader than for parties who simply work together on a committee.

Finally, we cannot assume that we begin with a blank slate of trust or dis­trust in relationships. In fact, we seldom approach others with “no information.” Rather, we tend to approach the other with some initial level of trust or of cau­tion (McKnight, Cummings, and Chervaney, 1998; Malhotra, 2004). In fact, some authors have argued that there is a strong disposition to overtrust in early relationships, a situation in which the truster’s trust exceeds the level that might be warranted by situational circumstances (Goel, Bell, and Pierce, 2005). Thus, determining the appropriate level of initial trust prior to substantial data about the other party may be more difficult than determining the appropriate level after some data have been collected (Ullman-Margalit, 2004).

In addition, we develop expectations about the degree to which we can trust new others, depending on a number of factors:

• Persanalitypredispasitions. Research has shown that individuals differ in their predisposition to trust another (Rotter, 1971; Wrightsman, 1974;

Gillespie, 2003). The higher an individual ranks in predisposition to trust, the more she expects trustworthy actions from the other, independent of her own actions. Similarly, research has shown that individuals differ in their predis­positions to be cynical, or show distrust (Kanter and Mirvis, 1989).

• Psychological orientation. Deutsch (1985) has characterized relationships in terms of their psychological orientations, or the complex synergy of “interrelated cognitive, motivational and moral orientations” (p. 94). He maintains that people establish and maintain social relationships partly on the basis of these orientations, such that orientations are influenced by relationships and vice versa. To the extent that people strive to keep their orientations internally consistent, they may seek out relationships that are congruent with their own psyche.

• Reputations and stereotypes. Even if we have no direct experience with another person, our expectations may be shaped by what we learn about them through friends, associates, and hearsay (Ferris, Blass, Douglas, Kolodinsky, and Treadway, 2003). The other’s reputation often creates strong expectations that lead us to look for elements of trust or distrust and also lead us to approach the relationship attuned to trust or to suspicion (for example, Glick and Croson, 2001).

• Actual experience over time. With most people, we develop facets of experience as we talk, work, coordinate, and communicate. Some

of these facets are strong in trust, while others may be strong in distrust. For example, in one study of organizational communication, it was shown that as frequency of communication increases, the parties’ gen­eral disposition toward the other party decreased in importance, while organizational and situational factors (for example, tenure, autonomy, and so on) increased in importance in the determination of trust. Over time, it is likely that either trust or distrust context/experience elements begin to dominate the experience base, leading to a stable and easily defined relationship (Becerra and Gupta, 2003). As these patterns stabi­lize, we tend to generalize across the scope of the relationship and describe it as one of high or low trust or distrust.

Implications of This Revised View of Trust

By incorporating the revisions just described into existing models of trust, we can summarize our ideas about trust and distrust within relationships:

• Relationships are multifaceted, and each facet represents an interaction that provides us with information about the other. The greater the variety of settings and contexts in which the parties interact, the more complex and multifaceted the relationship becomes.

• Within the same relationship, elements of trust and distrust may peace­fully coexist, because they are related to different experiences with the other or knowledge of the other in varied contexts.

• Relationships balanced with trust and distrust are likely to be healthier than relationships grounded only in trust. Particularly in organizational/ managerial relationships, “neither complete lack of trust, nor total trust, nor very high levels of affective attachment, nor enduring social reliance, nor destructive mistrust and betrayal, are appropriate or positive for organi­zational purposes” (Atkinson and Butcher, 2003). Particularly in business relationships, unquestioning trust, without distrust, is likely to create more problems than solutions (Wicks, Berman, and Jones, 1999; Blois, 2003).

Similarly, unquestioning distrust (or even paranoia) can sometimes be healthy, but sometimes perverse (Kramer, 2001, 2002).

• Facets of trust or distrust are likely to be calculus based or identification based. Earlier, we defined trust as confident positive expectations regarding another’s conduct and distrust as confident negative expectations regard­ing another’s conduct. We elaborated on those definitions in this way: Calculus-based trust (CBT) is a confident positive expectation regarding another’s conduct. It is grounded in impersonal transactions, and the overall anticipated benefits to be derived from the relationship are assumed to outweigh any anticipated costs.

Calculus-based distrust (CBD) is defined as confident negative expecta­tions regarding another’s conduct. It is also grounded in impersonal transactions, and the overall anticipated costs to be derived from the relationship are assumed to outweigh the anticipated benefits.

Identification-based trust (IBT) is defined as confident positive expecta­tions regarding another’s conduct. It is grounded in perceived compatibility of values, common goals, and positive emotional attachment to the other.

Identification-based distrust (IBD) is defined as confident negative expecta­tions regarding another’s conduct, grounded in perceived incompatibility of values, dissimilar goals, and negative emotional attachment to the other.

Characterizing Relationships Based on Trust Elements

Because there can be elements of each type of trust and distrust in a relation­ship, there are many types of relationships, varying in the combination of elements of calculus-based trust, calculus-based distrust, identification-based trust, and identification-based distrust. All of these types of relationships theoretically exist, but given the relative infancy of this theory we cannot effectively explore or discuss all of the possibilities. To simplify this framework, let us assume that we can characterize relationships as simply “high” or “low” in the number of CBT, CBD, IBT, and IBD elements. This reduces the framework to sixteen possible combinations of trust elements (see Table 4.1). Each row in this table represents a type of relationship, based on the pattern of high or low levels of CBT, CBD, IBT, and IBD. These combinations are listed in the first four columns, and a brief description of the relationship is found in the last column.

Based on our model, all sixteen types of relationship are hypothetically pos­sible and may be found among one’s friends, acquaintances, and professional associates. However, space limitations in this chapter permit us to offer only a few selective illustrations.

Relationship 1 of Table 4.1, low in all forms of trust and distrust, represents new relationships in which the actors have little prior information and no

Table 4.1. Sixteen Relationship Types Based on Dominant Trust and Distrust Elements

(Continued)

Table 4.1. Sixteen Relationship Types Based on Dominant Trust and Distrust Elements (Continued)

Note: CBT = calculus-based trust; CBD = calculus-based distrust; IBT = identification-based trust; IBD = identification-based distrust.

expectations about each other. Type 1 relationships may also not be new to us, but because we have had such limited interaction with the other there has been no basis for developing significant trust or distrust. Nevertheless, as we mentioned earlier, we tend to extend a modicum of trust to others even where there is little data to warrant it. We walk into a new dry cleaning store chosen at random and give the attendant our favorite suit because we trust that the dry cleaner will clean it, not ruin it. The very existence of the shop’s appearance as a legitimate busi­ness is sufficient to satisfy our trust. Thus, while the low-low-low-low situation may exist hypothetically, in fact this type of relationship may occur only when there is actual data for the truster to infer that low levels of trust and distrust are the most appropriate disposition (compare Jeffries and Reed, 2000).

Relationship 2 is high only in CBT. This is likely to be a business or profes­sional relationship in which the actors have had a number of successful exchanges and transactions that are beneficial to them. Over time, each person’s behavior has been positive and consistent, and the parties rely on each other to continue to act in the same way. For example, my investment counselor has made very good decisions about my money over time, and I continue to take his advice about when it is time to buy or sell.

Relationship 6, high in CBT and IBT, represents a prototypical high-trust rela­tionship. Both parties benefit greatly from the relationship, so they seek out opportunities to be together and do things together. Continued success in these interactions enhances their trust.

Relationships 15 and 16 are high in CBT, CBD, and IBT, and low or high respectively in IBD. These relationships are characterized by a high degree of ambivalence. The parties find that there are contexts in which they can work together successfully, but they also have to regulate and limit those interactions to minimize the distrust. Additionally, the parties have some strong positive commonalities in values, goals, and interests, but they may (or may not) have strong dissimilarities in the same areas. The parties learn to manage their rela­tionship by maximizing interaction around those areas where they have strong CBT and IBT, while regulating, controlling, or minimizing interaction in those areas with strong CBD (and perhaps IBD). However, ongoing uncertainty, coupled with the potential for strong emotional reactions to one another in a variety of circumstances, may make it difficult for the parties to sustain a stable relationship over time (Jones and Burdette, 1994).