ABSTRACT
Trust is, in some sense, an alternative to power. One can coerce other people to bring about a result one desires or one can trust them to bring about a desired result without coercion. To say that trust is a decision to be dependent on another person is to say that it is a decision not to be self-reliant. Self-reliance, interpreted most crudely and obviously, is a function of power. If one has power over other people, or simply power over outcomes, then one can by definition control events, bringing them to a desired conclusion. In this sense the man of power need not trust others to do what he wants because he can coerce them instead. Most of the scientific investigations of trust that have heretofore been undertaken have been concerned mainly with finding out whether or not trusting behavior occurs and with identifying personality attributes of trustors.
