Trust

Trust is a fundamental component of virtually all social interactions. In the context of a close relationship, trust refers to the level of confidence we have that the other person will act in ways that will fulfill our expectations. This confidence does not merely reflect an intellectual assessment of the likelihood that a partner will act as anticipated, but also an emotionally experienced sense of security and assurance in the partner's behavior and motives.

The fulfillment of many of our most cherished hopes and dreams requires the active presence and participation of important people in our lives in ways that are frequently beyond our control. Yet how do we characterize the multitude of goals, plans, and expectations that we have for others and ourselves? Trust researchers have offered various systems for organizing these expectations and, despite the differences in these organizational schemes, they tend to share one common theme. In virtually all cases, researchers have related trust to what they consider to be the most important interpersonal goal in a close relationship—the belief that our partner is motivated by feelings of responsiveness and caring towards us.

Robert Larzelere and Ted Huston (1980) have suggested that the most important expectations involve confidence in another person's benevolence and honesty or sincerity. Benevolence involves a genuine concern for the other's welfare and the motivation to maximize positive outcomes. Thus, for Larzelere and Huston, the core issues of trust in a close relationship involve the expectations that the other person cares and can be believed.

Similarly, Cynthia Johnson-George and Walter Swap (1982) developed a measure of emotional trust that taps into expectations of a partner's openness, honesty, and concern for the other's welfare. Again, the most important set of expectations involves confidence in a partner's expressions of caring and concern.

This same theme also occurs in the work of John Holmes and John Rempel and their colleagues. For example, Rempel, Holmes, and Mark Zanna (1985) organized expectations along a dimension from specific concrete behaviors to abstract interpersonal motives. Predictability is the most concrete dimension and it refers to expectations for specific behaviors. Dependability refers to expectations based more on qualities and characteristics such as honesty and reliability that identify the partner as a trustworthy person. Finally, faith, the most general and abstract level of expectations, reflects an emotional security that enables people to go beyond the available evidence and feel, with assurance, that their partner will be responsive and caring whatever the future may hold. An emphasis on a partner's motives of love and caring as the central component of trust in a close relationship occurs consistently in other work produced by these authors (e.g., Holmes 1991; Holmes and Rempel 1989).

Thus, the most important aspect of trust in an intimate relationship appears to involve expectations that individuals will be caring and will act in ways that will take the needs and desires of their partner into account, even at a cost to themselves. Confidence in this central belief may translate into a host of more specific goals and expectations unique to each couple.