Trust would arise from the experience which gained from the interaction between products or services among consumers. Trust and reliability could create a positive expectation and consumers’ relationships. After interaction occurs frequently, it will lead to emotional formations of Trust called “Emotional Confidence”.
Trust is a psychological state. Despite divergence in particular conceptualizations, most authors agree that, whatever else its essential features, trust is fundamentally a psychological state. Recall the common usage of the word “trust.” When we say that we have trust in someone or something, we refer to a psychological state of ours that may involve cognitive, affective, and behavioral components according to the understanding of trust furnished by literatures.
Trust is also characterized as a set of “socially learned and socially confirmed expectations that people have of each other, of the organizations and institutions in which they live, and of the natural and moral social orders that set the fundamental understandings for their lives”.
Trust is relational. Trust entails perceived vulnerability that is derived from one’s uncertainty regarding the motives, intentions, and prospective actions of others. Without the involvement of others trust would not come into play. We adopt this relational view of trust.
Trust is a choice. Think of how we use the word “trust” again. Often time, we use the word as a verb rather than a noun; thus, we refer to something we do that involves a decision or choice among potential alternative course of actions. You may or may not buy a used car that may turn out to be a lemon. You may or may not hire a babysitter for the evening and leave him or her unsupervised. You may or may not agree to be operated on by a doctor with whom you are least familiar. When we choose to “trust” or “not trust” in a person or an organization, we are making a choice, a decision and in most cases the choice manifests itself and can be observed.
Trust is not trustworthiness. Trustworthiness refers to the characteristics of the trustee, which consists of perceived competence, reliability and benevolent intention, and so on. However, trust is trustor’s characteristics and it may or may not be based on his/her perception of the trustee. In other words, perceived trustworthiness is a belief about the trustee; thus, trust is not such a perception.
Trust is not expectation. Expectation is a belief about what is to happen. Many definitions, especially those that focus on future events, view trust as expectation of the trustee’s future behavior. These expectations may be based on the rewards or punishments that guide the others’ behavior (i.e., calculus-based trust), the predictability of the other’s behaviors (i.e., knowledge-based trust), or a full internalization of the other’s desires and intentions (i.e., identification-based trust).
