Trust is a Verb!: A Critical Reconstruction of the Sociological Theory of Trust

Abstract

What is trust and how should it be studied? In this essay, we seek to reconstruct the sociological theory of trust and propose an alternate strategy focused on analyzing the skillful nature of the “trust methods” employed by ordinary people. Instead of treating trust as a static property that can be measured by close-format survey questions, we conceptualize trusting as a skillful practice that is highly context-dependent and attuned to temporal variables such as speed, duration, sequence, and timing. To illustrate this approach, we draw on interviews with Long COVID patients focusing on how they account for who, what, when and how they distinguish responsible trust from blind faith.

Keywords

• trust
• sociological theory
• trust surveys
• ethnomethodology