CLASSIFICATION OF FACTORS SHAPING TRUST: FROM INTERPERSONAL CENTRES TO INSTITUTIONAL LEGITIMACY

Abstract

The article provides an expanded theoretical generalization of the phenomenon of trust as a socio-institutional resource that ensures cooperation and stability of interactions under conditions of uncertainty, risk, and information asymmetry. It demonstrates that trust performs the function of “complexity reduction” within the social environment and lowers transaction costs, while its deficit leads to strengthened control, the growth of distrust as a defensive orientation, a narrowing of horizons of cooperation, and the substitution of formal rules with informal guarantees.

Based on an analysis of interdisciplinary approaches, the article substantiates an integrated classification of factors shaping trust, encompassing institutional and political, normative and cultural, and socio-economic determinants, factors of security and risk manageability, the performance or success of social actors, as well as interpersonal “nodes” of trust. The mechanisms through which each group of factors operates are revealed, including the provision of institutional predictability and accountability, impartiality and procedural justice, stabilization of norms and values, the operation of ethical constraints on opportunism, reputational incentives of social capital, the reduction of economic instability, and the normalization of financial risks.

Special emphasis is placed on the role of the security environment and the sense of control over typical life situations in sustaining individuals’ readiness to rely on others and on “abstract systems,” whereas increasing “risk saturation” of everyday life reinforces caution and distrust. The article also highlights the role of the performance and success of state and non-state actors as signals of competence and reliability, which either strengthen trust or accelerate its erosion. It is argued that distortions of trust are most often associated with anomie, institutional unpredictability, economic crises, the criminalization or informalization of interactions, and the cultural normalization of distrust, which narrows the “circle” of trust to the closest social milieu.