ABSTRACT

One reaction to an earlier book in this series (Cvetkovich and Löfstedt, 1999) recognized a lack of consensus on definitions of key concepts regarding social reliance and trust (Fischhoff, 1999). Agreeing that this conceptual jumble hinders scientific advancement and handicaps the ability to offer effective practical advice, we cautiously make some suggestions. We offer these suggestions based on our joint research on cooperative management of US national forests, trust research within other cooperative risk management domains, and on the first author's examinations of trust in other domains of human functioning. There are many domain-specific aspects to relying on others. A child's trust of a parent or trust in a romantic partner, obviously, are different in many ways from trust in the individuals whom you have never met and who are in charge of an environmental protection or natural resource management agency. But there are also some important similarities. Recognition of the similarities as well as differences can aid the development of a consensus on basic definitions and directions for further research.