ABSTRACT
Cognitive based trust builds trust in the three categories of unit grouping, reputation, and stereotyping. Unit grouping is the process involved when team members come together to accomplish common goals. Reputation increases and supports the decision to trust. Organizations and particularly brands work hard to establish simple, programmed responses amongst customers; effectively they encourage stereotyping. Groups with a negative stereotype may, for example, be perceived as less technically capable and with a poorer grasp of the technologies than other project team members. Team members working in the virtual model often find it difficult to become familiar with their team to such a degree that the relationship has moved beyond the introductory and discovery point, and into a trusted relationship. Team members can now discover information about a project with which their work lives intertwine, and build the ability for cognitive based trust, based on the reporting. Even social encounters with virtual team members affect perceptions of trustworthiness.
