Trust can be typically defined as a situation that is characterized by aspects which are: one party which is willing to risk by relying on the actions of the other party known as the trustee while the first party is referred to as the trustor: the situation is directed towards the future. The trustor either forcedly or voluntarily abandons control over the trustee’s actions to be performed. This therefore leads to the trustor being uncertain concerning the outcomes of another person’s actions. The trustor can only come up with and evaluate expectations. The cause of the uncertainty by the trustor results from the risk of harm or failure in case the trustee for one reason or the other does not behave as expected.
Trust may be attributed to people’s and technology’s relationship; trust’s attribution is a matter about dispute. The international stance argues that trust can be attributed to the relationship that humans have with complex technologies. Rational reflection however, results to the rejection of an ability of trusting technological artefacts.
One of the major challenges that currently faces the social sciences is the rethinking of the manner in which the rapid progress of technology has affected constructs like trust. This is very true especially in the information technology that dramatically changes causation in social systems.
The subtleties of trust as far as the social sciences are concerned, is a subject of continuing research. In psychology and sociology, the degree by which a party trusts another party is used as a measure of the belief in the fairness, honesty, or the benevolence of another party. Confidence is the more appropriate term for describing the belief in the competence of another party. Failure of trust can be forgiven easily in case it is interpreted to be a failure of competence other than the lack of honesty or benevolence.
In the field of economics, trust is often viewed as the reliability in transactions. In all the cases that involve trust, trust is said to be a heuristic decision rule, that allows the humans to address the complexities that otherwise, would require a lot of effort, unrealistic perhaps in rational reasoning.
SOCIOLOGY.
Sociology is concerned with the role and position of trust in social systems. The interest in this area of trust has developed a lot since the early eighties. This growth has also been stimulated by the on-going changes in the society which are characterized as post-modernity and late modernity.
Trust is among the few social constructs; it is an element of the so called social reality. It doesn’t exist outside our vision of the other. The image may be imaginary or it can be real, but it is responsible for permitting the creation of trust. Some of the other constructs that are often discussed together with this construct of trust are: power, meaning, risk, confidence and control. Trust is by nature attributable to the relationships between social actors, who can be individuals or groups. Since trust is a social construct, the discussion of whether trust can be trusted is said to be valid.
