Trust as a Social Reality

Although trust is an underdeveloped concept in sociology, promising theoretical formulations are available in the recent work of Luhmann and Barber. This socio-logica! version complements the psychological and attitudinal conceptualizations of experimental and survey researchers. Trust is seen to include both emotional and cognitive dimensions and to function as a deep assumption underwriting so-cial order. Contemporary examples such as lying, family exchange, monetary atti-tudes, and litigation illustrate the centrality of trust as a sociological reality. In recent years, sociologists have begun to treat trust as a sociological topic