Dynamic principles of generalized trust

Based on my readings and understanding of the literature, I have culled out a few principles (generalities?) that may govern trust. Trust in this context is generalized "social" trust, people trusting people; people trusting systems (legal, financial, economic, and possibly technical systems). There are some counter-intuitive components here. So this is ripe for discussion and sharing of insights.

Boundary: Trust tends to grow within a boundary; tends to erode across (perceived) boundaries.

    Boundary in this is an abstract idea - based on spatial, temporal, attributes or identities

    Group identity as a cultivator of trust belongs here.

    Often to promote trust, a leader might instill a stronger sense of boundaries.

    Bush government is developing a strong sense of "other" or "us and them", for example.

Hierarchy: Trust generally flows along lines of power.

    Power is also quite an abstract notion; could be based on authority, position, knowledge, connections, status etc.

    Trust is expected to be given by those in power; those lower in (perceived) power will reciprocate and not initiate.

    So in large organizations, we expect the Leader to demonstrate trusting.

Bi-directional: Give trust to gain trust.

    See comments below on how this gets morphed when dealing with socio-technical systems.

    Much of the literature of management and organizational change emphasize trustworthy conduct.

    We believe trusting behavior is critical.

Experiential: Trust deepens or retreats with experience

    This is often referred to as rational, calculative or transactional trust.

    There are some models of how this calculation goes (Brave, Zolin, Eggers and others).

    Some of these also explain Asymmetry (below).

Asymmetry: Trust deepens slower than it erodes

    An extreme version of this says (people have said this in interviews) "broken trust cannot be mended"

Dispositional: Some trust more naturally and others distrust more naturally

    This is said to be "dispositional" and perhaps a result of childhood conditioning, discipline or training and is suggested that it cannot be changed.

Surrogates: Mechanisms of compliance, enforcement, monitoring, remediation are "surrogates" of trust.

    Trust surrogates, including legal systems (contracts, courts, compensation), financial systems (set ways of doing business with disclosure and uniform execution).

    In Economics, Political Science and related disciplines there is a prevalent view that "systems" displace trust; allowing non-trusting parties to work together to accomplish their respective aims without establishing trust.

Categories: Trust attribution from experience is generalized to categories. Inference from the general to particular is carried out.

Transfer of Trust: Referrals are a generalized mechanism for transferring trust among acquaintances and related parties.

    Those making "good" referrals also witness their trust capital going up. People trust those who make such good referrals.