translate to persian:
Trust is considered to be one of the most important aspects of the development and maintenance of well-functioning and satisfying interpersonal relationships. Across cultures and societies, trust is that certain indefinable thing that allows for an effective interaction between human beings on all social levels, including society as a whole (Rotter, 1967, 1980), economic systems (Knack & Keefer, 1997; Zak & Knack, 2001), organizations (Dirks & Ferrin, 2001) and intimate romantic relationships (Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Rempel et al., 1985; Simpson, 2007; Wieselquist et al., 1999). As members of a highly social species, trust allows us to rely on the social system as well as specific people so that we are not forced to manage every single aspect of our lives and our environment ourselves. We trust our country to use our taxes to pay for infrastructure, we trust our employers to pay for our work at the end of the month, we trust our employees to finish the tasks that we give to them, we trust our bank to take care of our money, we trust companies to produce healthy food, safe cars, and stable buildings, and we trust our family, friends and partners to provide us with comfort, affection and security. In line with these considerations, major psychological theories have emphasized the importance of trust for successful interpersonal relationships throughout an individual’s lifespan. In the influential attachment theory (Ainsworth et al., 2015; Bowlby, 1969), trust is regarded as a trait skill developed in early childhood in response to primary caregivers, resulting in stable inner working models that determine attachment patterns in future relationships. Similarly, trust is incorporated in the first of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development (1963), with dependable affection by the parents or primary caregivers resulting in a confident, trusting view of the world for the following developmental stages. Specifically developed as a framework for trust in close adult relationships, the dyadic model of trust suggests that trust towards a specific other arises from interactions between a truster and an interdependent recipient, the trustee. It involves predictability, dependability and faith as independent components, and is strongly associated with motivation of both the self and the partner (Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Rempel et al., 1985). Simpson (2007) expanded the model with regard to developmental stages of trust, suggesting that trust-diagnostic situations provide opportunities to experience relationship-enhancing transformations, with mutually beneficial decisions resulting in positive attributions, positive future expectancies, and thus, more stable perceptions of security in the relationship. Despite the fundamental importance of trust reflected by its prominence in theoretical models in psychological, social and economic sciences, consistent lines of research are limited due to the complexity of the construct. Accordingly, there is no universally accepted definition. While Deutsch (1973) defines trust as “confidence that one will find what is desired from another, rather than what is feared”, Rotter (1967) describes it as “a generalized expectancy that the verbal statements of others can be relied upon” and Simpson (2007) as “a function of properties of the self (I), the specific partner (you), and the specific goal in a current situation (I trust you to do X)”, emphasizing the particular difficulty to grasp the construct methodologically. However, the different interpretations share several elements within their definitions, and taken together, provide a working definition of trust for the following chapters of this dissertation.
First, trust involves a positively motivated expectation of the trustee’s future behavior, the confidence that personal needs will be fulfilled (Deutsch, 1958, 1973; Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Rotter, 1967). Second, trusting someone usually comes with costly investments of personal resources with the anticipation of future advantages (Berg et al., 1995; Fehr et al., 1993; Kosfeld et al., 2005). This creates interpersonal dependency between the truster or investor, and the trustee, as the investor’s personal interests depend on the behavior of the trustee, and the trustee in return, might feel committed towards the investor. Third, trusting others means to accept a certain risk, as the investor’s expectations might be neglected and investments might be abused by the trustee (Fehr & Gachter, 2000; Koller, 1988; Rempel et al.,1985). For example, entrusting money to a bank involves the confident expectation of being able to withdraw it when needed. It represents a costly investment with anticipated advantages as the investor accepts the money cannot be spent now if future profits from interest are to be earned. Also, it involves a risk, as the bank might choose to invest the money in dubious stock exchange deals. Similar in theory but very different in content, entrusting someone with romantic feelings in a committed relationship involves the confident expectation of a happily shared future. The investment of personal resources (e.g., emotions, time, and abstinence from alternative partners) is costly, but future personal profit is expected to arise from equal investments by the partner. The possibility of our most intimate feelings being betrayed represents a high personal risk. These two examples emphasize the multidimensionality of the construct, with general interpersonal trust (e.g., towards social authorities like banks) and trust towards specific others (e.g., the partner) representing mostly independent constructs (Johnson-George & Swap, 1982; Simpson, 2007). Summing up these general positions, trust has received considerable attention in numerous research fields, including psychological, social and economic sciences, reflecting a fundamental importance for human society as a whole. Building on this broad framework, the following sections provide an overview of different approaches for the assessment of trust, specific mechanisms of trust in close romantic relationships, and the psychobiological model of trust.