Foundations of trust, interpersonal relationships and communities

Guido Merzoni () and Federico Trombetta

No dis1201, DISEIS - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimento di Economia internazionale, delle istituzioni e dello sviluppo (DISEIS)

Abstract: We claim that the emergence of trust is best explained by relation-based arguments. After brie fly surveying alternative explanations which concentrate on material payoffs both with self-centered and with other-regarding preferences, we examine theoretical discussions of cooperative and trust behavior framed in terms of attitudes, esteem and, most of all, intentions. An important implication of all these approaches is that the relational element makes human inter actions different, as it is also documented by a lot of evidence produced by neuroeconomic experiments. When trust is based on relations and on the recognition of the others’ intentions, efficient outcomes are brought about by the agents’ (at least) partial disregard for the maximization of their material payoff and by heavily personalized interactions. Both these features are distinctive of the functioning of communities and the particular way how they work and solve coordination problems.

Keywords: trust; community; intentions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C70 C72 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Journal Article: Foundations of trust, interpersonal relationships and communities (2012)
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