AbstractsSociology

The Trust Paradox An inquiry into the core of social life

by May-Britt Ellingsen




Institution: Universitetet i Tromsø
Department:
Year: 2015
Keywords: VDP::Samfunnsvitenskap: 200::Sosiologi: 220 ; VDP::Social science: 200::Sociology: 220
Record ID: 1280875
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10037/7090


Abstract

This is a theoretical thesis, which pursues three ambitions. It develops a process perspective on trust, examines the integration between an empirical grounded theory of trust and sociological theory, and explores the relationship between trust and social change. The process perspective on trust is generated from an empirical grounded study of trust processes at micro level, and about how macro level social change can affect micro level processes. The main finding is that trust is a dynamic quality; it is a continuous process of social construction. To trust is about making a leap of faith, from doubt into trusting. This leap has a social platform and is triggered by a sense of mutual understanding - trusting presupposes mutual understanding and a common social basis. This basis has pre-contractual, relational and structural elements. The social processes discovered in the empirical grounded theory of trust are general social processes elaborated on in sociology, but these processes are not explicitly related theoretically to the development of trust. The thesis therefore explores how the main elements of the empirical grounded process theory of trust are elaborated on in sociological theory and relates this to trust. This exploration provides a theoretical grounding of the empirical grounded theory. However, grounded theory methodology is not very explicit about how empirical grounded theories can be theoretically grounded and integrated into existing theory. The thesis therefore discusses this issue and introduces four strategies for integration of grounded theory and existing theory. The process theory of trust is applied to analysing the trust paradox, which is an inquiry into the relationship between trust and social change. The trust paradox indicates that social change is about changes in our bases for trust, and that social change leads to development new configurations on of trust bases.; Dette er en teoretisk avhandling med tre ambisjoner: å utvikle et prosessperspektiv på tillit, undersøke integrasjon mellom tillitsteori generert fra empiriske data og sosiologisk teori, og utforske forholdet mellom tillit og sosial endring. Prosessperspektivet på tillit er utviklet gjennom bruk av grounded theory metodologi og er empirisk forankret i studier av hvordan sosial endring på makronivå kan påvirke tillitsprosesser på mikronivå. Hovedfunnet er at tillit er dynamisk, og en kontinuerlig sosial konstruksjonsprosess. Å fatte tillit vil si å gjøre et sprang fra tvil til tillit. Tillitsspranget har en sosial plattform og utløses av en følelse av gjensidig forståelse. Å fatte tillit forutsetter gjensidig forståelse og et felles sosialt grunnlag. Dette grunnlaget består av prekontraktuelle, relasjonelle og strukturelle elementer. Den grounded theory baserte tillitsteorien bygger på generelle sosiale prosesser som utdypes i sosiologisk teori, men som ikke knyttes eksplisitt til tillit. Avhandlingen utforsker derfor hvordan disse prosessene diskuteres i sosiologisk teori og kobler dem til tillit. Dette innebærer en…