Trust & Commonality

Universal Needs:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs seems pretty universal. With the foundation of Physiological then Safety then Love/Belonging/ then Esteem then Self-actualization. With the idea that they build upon one another and there is a dependency for being aware of them i.e If you don’t have food, water, sleep you are not likely to be worrying about safety, but once those needs are met you start to need friendship/belonging then Esteem then opportunities for problem solving, creating, moralizing.

I’d like to add to his list:
- The need to assign meaning to surrounding world (language, religion, philosophy)
- The need to feel secure with one’s identity
- The need to be and feel right, justified.
- The need to express one’s thoughts, desires, feelings, reactions.

Universal Values:
George Lakoff in “Don’t Think Of An Elephant: Know Your Values – Frame the Debate”, frames a divide between progressive and conservative values. Combined could they form a universal whole?
They are:
- care and responsibility,
- fairness and equality,
- freedom and courage,
- fulfillment in life,
- opportunity and community,
- cooperation and trust,
- honesty and openness,
- discipline and control,
- self-reliance and independence,
- order, punishment & reward
- moral authority

Universal Desires:
Can only think of one right now:
To grasp for things one doesn’t perceive one’s self to have.

Very interesting thoughts and discussion, thank you, Ed Rholl, for starting this topic.
Especially using humanism theories from psychology makes arguments trustworthy. I think most of the civilizations share the same principles(values) that are mentioned here, but their perception of these principles vary. Let's take for example equality, the understanding of equality in most of the societies are the same, that is treating everybody the same. But the interpretation of this definition by various societies is diferent. Who is everybody? every japanese or every muslim? What I want to say here is our difference is in our commonalities.
As to the quote, I completely agree with Samuel Huntington, in this age the universalism is doomed, and crisis in Middle East proves that. I also think that the more the civilizations interact the closer they become, but interaction will not take place if one civilization places its values over others'. How many civilizations exist today? Do YOU know anything about other cultures? What kind of specific differences and common features of the civilizations do we know? We alway speak about values, comonalities and differences in general, but we never specify them. When you specify the point then you can speak about whys and hows.
It would be interesting to know to if the online community is one new civilization called online civilization or is it just part of western or other type of civilization?
I came from Uzbekistan and live in Japan, I feel that we are so different and similar at the same time.

All humans have wants, needs, desires, and values, but the key to using those wants, needs, desires, and values to establish an online community of trust lies in our commonality.

How can we use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to build online trust?

At the bottom, physiological: breathing, water, food, sleep, sex, excretion, and shelter. Assuming members of the online community have regular access to a computer with an internet connection (and are alive), they have met the basic life bringing needs if only on the most essential level.

Next, safety: security of body, health, family, property, employment, resources, and morality. The online community can both help and hurt on this level. People can use the internet to find jobs, obtain resources, buy property, and educate themselves about health. The internet, like any other available tool, is more effectively used by cultures who have met the higher levels on Maslow’s hierarchy. American quality of safety and livelihood has been advanced by the online community. Of course, the internet has created many safety problems as well. When the tool falls in the wrong hands, the community can destroy itself. Identity theft can jeopardized safety of property and resources. Internet predator can jeopardized safety of body and family. A cacophony of images and communication can lead to confused safety of morality. Internet addiction can lead to poor health. However, through safety mechanisms and education, the online community is working to fix these problems. Although the tools were created by both academics and technicians, the technological community holds a great responsibility for protecting this level.

Love and belonging: family, friendship, and sexual intimacy. Again, the online community both helps and hinders this level of need. Through the communication tools, people can connect with extended family. People can use the internet to map their genealogy and connect with distant relatives. Most importantly, the internet has spawned a community of its own. The capacity for developing new friendships is great. The online community can give people a sense of love and belonging. Massive dating sites give people the tools to find a romantic and/or sexual partner–even to find marriage. This power, however, leads to some of the biggest problems and biggest criticisms. The safety level interferes with the love and belonging level. With out mechanisms to build trust, safety, and protection, the internet can be a tool for heartache and alienation.

Esteem: confidence, respect, achievement. The internet as the “information superhighway” is the biggest forum in the world for sharing ideas. Even in the early days of the internet, academia through LANs used the online community to share ideas. Through forums such as this, we give respect, get respect, build confidence, and strive for achievement. People throughout the world use the internet to gain education and to better themselves.

Finally, self-actualization: problem solving, creativity, morality, spontaneity, lack of prejudice and acceptance of ideas. Our purpose. Our mutual goal in this contest is to use our creativity to solve problems. The internet gives us the tools to communicate and share ideas, and ODR is the ultimate symbol of problem solving in the online community. By building trust in the lower levels, we can achieve self-actualization. The internet creates a forum for spreading ideas and education. We create, we instantly connect, we find ourselves through others. This is the ultimate goal.

See, Maslow, Abraham. A Theory of Human Motivation. 1943.

First to tackle the quote by Samuel Huntington in ‘the Clash of Civilizations’. To put it simply, I think that rejecting the imperialistic ideal that one worldview has the full ‘answer’ is a matter of rejecting that there is only one messenger and not necessarily rejecting that there is only one message. Let me explain; I think there are a set of fundamental beliefs that all of humanity believes in but it is when our actions and beliefs are filtered through our culture and perspectives that we begin to be set apart. Love to one person may mean peace and to another it may mean war, both situations require a sacrifice in order to attain the end result… Love. The idea of pluralism, where all worldviews have some value, to me again speaks of a commonality in purpose. Inherently our desires, needs, and wants have the same root or foundation and it is in the expression of such that we identify our differences.

When considering what all of humanity has in common, beyond the bare necessities (food, water, shelter), we all have a ‘need to be loved and a need to love’ It may seem like a simple statement but it is really all encompassing. The need to be loved: to be respected, valued, appreciated, needed, etc. The need to love: friendship, companionship, trust, etc. Both lists are endless and I think it is the expression that changes and not the need. I also, same as shunter, reflected on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The progression to me is interesting. After our physiological and safety needs are met, which are the necessities to maintaining a physical state of being, the 3rd stage is “Belongingness and love needs – Need to love and to be loved”. (Myers, Psychology 6th Edition, pg. 426). Just as we will not progress to greater more sophisticated needs if our body is not physically sustained (if we are starving we can not focus on our emotional well-being), the same goes for our need to love and be loved. If we have not achieved a balance of how to best meet this need the progression to the next levels (“Esteem needs” & “Self-actualization needs”) becomes hindered.

I think when we find a universal purpose that a majority of people can commit to, that purpose we will surpass the differences that would seek to keep us apart. The focus will not be on what can we do as individuals, but rather what can we accomplish together.

As I have not been able to participate regularly and have not read all the postings, I feel I can add the most value to the discussion by commenting on the Dr. Tamar Frankel's summary. I hope you find my comments below to be relevant and useful:

1. Summary reference: "I followed generally the three levels of trust creation proposed by one commentator that is: personal relationships, organizational verification, and community enforcement."

My Comments: It is important to distinguish between mechanisms that establish (create or develop) trust and those that preserve trust. Although the first two mechanisms do help to create trust, community enforcement serves to protect from a loss of trust. However, according to my Trust Enablement Framework, mechanisms that create trust do fall into three general categories, those that provide access to: Experiential Sources of Trust (just the facts, think of objective eye witnesses - "personal relationships" above fall into this category), for high trust; Authoritative Sources of Trust (opinions, think of expert witnesses - "organizational verification" could fall into this category if it is in the form of a certification or professional/expert opinion/judgement) for fast trust; and Empowerment to identify and choose preferred sources of trust (think of a jury selection process) to compensate for any deficiencies in the above two categories.

2. Summary reference: "The discussions also revealed an interesting feature, which substantiate the participants’ ideas. The participants recognized and emphasized that anonymity on the Internet presents a barrier to trust while face to face interaction can strengthen trust."

My Comments: I agree that in some cases anonymity can serve to decrease trust. However, this is not a universal truth. Think of a witness protection program that will protect the anonymity of a witness in order to allow the witness to reveal truthful and possibly damaging information. The same is true for people being honest about revealing their personal attributes when their anonymity is preserved. For example, the transaction receipt you receive from an automated bank teller machine often includes a bank balance. Many people feel comfortable disposing of the receipt in the trash because the receipt keeps their identity anonymous. In other words, they feel no hesitation honestly revealing their private bank balance information with strangers, because no-one can tell that it is their bank balance. In an online auction, anonymity may both increase the likelohood that a person will participate (trust) and could contribute to other people's sense of uncertainty (distrust)about the motivations of competing bidders. The bottom line is that anonymity can both help to promote trust and hinder it, depending on circumstances.

3. Summary reference: "Almost all participants used some mechanisms to lower the barrier of trust among themselves... Their interest and enjoyment brought about a sense of a face to face encounter."

My Comments: Revealing something about yourself is a very common way for teams to initiate a trust-building process based on a self-reinforcing cycle of reciprocity. This mechanism of making oneself vulnerable to others by voluntarily revealing something personal is an example of of Risk Transferrence. It is used to engage relying parties (trusting parties) before they have established sufficient trust to participate. Other examples of Risk Transferrence are insurance, warranties, full refunds on purchased items and investing in a relationship. BTW, according to my Trust Enablement Framework, Risk Transferrence is one of three types of mechanisms that protect from a loss or deficiency of trust. The other two are Motivating mechanisms (rules, regulations, values, culture, incentives, penalties, recourse, etc.) to help predict future decisions and actions and Proficiency mechanisms (production resources, knowledge, processes, controls, technology, etc.) to reliably deliver expected value from one or several transactions (shorter time horizon).

4. Summary reference: "[Participants] began to create a community not by requirement or command but instinctively, by seeking affinity."

My Comments: From a Trust Enablement perspective, participants were Experiencing behaviours that helped participants Establish Trust in their Motivations. This is a vital step in the trust-building process. It can be shortened (but not necessarily bypassed) when participants already belong to and have invested in the same affinity group. In our case, we were forming a new affinity group.

5. Summary reference: "One of the more serious problems of creating trust on the Internet is the absence of face-to-face interaction, that is, the anonymity of the actors. How can this barrier to trust be pulled down?"

My Comments: Remember, face-to-face interaction is just one of many Experiential Sources of Trust mechanisms that helps to establish high trust. In its absences, information technology based substitutes mechanisms can be used to leverage the experiences of other people or mechanisms (audit logs, surveillance cameras, audit logs, etc.)to objectively relate their experiences (even, but not necessarily, their face-to-face interactions). For example, eBay offers a Feedback Forum that allows participants to relate their experiences with a transaction)

6. Summary reference: "Even though technology-enabling interaction exists and is getting better, the global population lives in different worlds, world-views, and “based on different levels of consciousness/awareness/ability to take perspectives.”

My Comments: This deals with having a common understanding, which is really the first step for building trust. According to one former Boeing executive in Russia collaboration is founded on the following order (think of these as layers of a pyramid): Terminology (analogous to our summary point); Technology; Trust; and Team. Common Terminology, or "world-views" help to establish trust using mechanisms in the Authoritative Sources of Trust category of my Trust Enablement Framework. If you are starting to get the feeling that my objective is to demonstrate that every item discussed belongs to a unified system that I believe can be usefully described using my Trust Enablement Framework, trust your feelings. I believe it is useful to look at trust as a system, based on a conceptual architecture. My Trust Enablement Framework provides the conceptual architecture. Filling in each of the categories of the Framework defines the Functional Trust Architecture.

7. Summary reference: "In addition, participants recognized that building trust takes time."

My Comments: More accurately, building high trust requires more time, since you have to rely on Experiential Sources of Trust.

8. Summary reference: "In fact, even among the participants views of human nature were not compatible... The risk of abuse of trust, noted one participant, is present in countries that restrict open and free communications."

My Comments: Human nature is only one of many Motivators that affect decisions and behaviour. When the objective is to scale trust, human nature alone may not be a sufficient Motivation mechanism on which to rely. Let me give you a personal example. My daughter turned 13 this week. For some years now she has spend considerable time behind closed doors in her room chatting on MSN and more recently FaceBook. Becoming a teenage means experiencing hormonal changes that shape motivation. This leads to experimental new behaviour that is perfectly normal, but without good judgment can have unwanted consequences. Although, to the best of my knowledge, she has done nothing risky or wrong, as a parent I feel I need to be prudent. One option was to restrict her communications, using various blocking mechanisms. Another was move the computer out of her room. Another was to make sure she keeps the door to her room open. Yet another involves using technology to remotely share her screen so I can see what she is doing (snooping). The option I instituted today was to install software on her computer that records all her communication and computer-based activities. I informed her immediately (for full disclosure), so she could modify her behaviour, so as not to embarrass herself (of course she is not talking to me now, since she rightfully thinks I don't trust her, not realizing that I am simply trying to protect her because she is not mature enough to independently exercise good judgment - an example of tough love). My objective is to modify her behaviour (not control), if necessary, and rarely have to actually review the logs.

Now getting back to the second and related point about "countries that control communication", isn't that just a macro example of my family scenario? Yes, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Lord Acton, British Historian. In other words, exerting too much control is a way of compensating for deficiencies in trust. Too much trust (blind trust) can make people too vulnerable. The solution is always a balancing act. Just like with a child, the pendulum should swings with maturity from control to trust. Sometimes, countries are justified in their actions to control communication, such as during life-threatening crises. However, most times, they are not.

9. Summary reference: "Proposed solutions to the failure of personal trust on the Internet. A number of proposals have been made to understand and strengthen personal trust on the Internet.First, trust-levels can be graded into (i) high -- interpersonal trust (ii) lower -- organizational and (iii) strong but involving weaknesses--community trust."

My Comments: A failure of personal trust is not necessarily a problem. Francis Fukuyama, in his book "Trust" attributes superior prosperity in certain nations such as the United States to institutions that broker impersonal trust. By contrast, nations that depend too much on personal trust, such as on the trust within families find it difficult to trust strangers, which inhibits economic growth and prosperity. On the contrary, the Internet allows us to form institutions that help scale trust to unprecedented levels. This is opening new opportunities never imagined before. eBay has shattered all performance records and has done so based on impersonal trust. My research into supply chain configuration maturities (see "Trust Enabled Supply Networks: Uncovering the trust-building secrets of highly collaborative supply chains" at http://trustenablement.com/local/Trust_Enabled_Supply_Networks-whitepape...) revealed that the most evolved supply chains had the most comprehensive conditions for trust, and that the trust did not rely as much on personal relationships (case in point, Linux development).

I first discovered the power of digital networks to build trust when I launched my first software on Compuserve in 1991, well before the Internet was popular. I discovered that it was orders of magnitude faster to establish higher levels of trust online than in the physical world. My adoption rates, sales cycles, price points, sales volumes, profit margins, customer satisfaction were all higher for online sales. A recent interview of a Second Life visionary developer revealed a similar experience "The ones that are willing to use Second Life as their exclusive method of communication are the ones that make decisions much faster, provide us with clear feedback, never default on payments, never generate expectations but go strict to the point, and, besides a flutter of email exchanges, most meetings, walkthroughs, milestone analysis, and "last minute details" are all conducted in-world in Second Life. Other companies, however, are still very conservative. They require physical meetings or (mostly useless) conference calls; they send faxes with NDAs. They take months to reach a decision; and are hesitant and anxious about delivery of content according to a plan; and finally, take months to pay. The difference is indeed staggering."

One way to establish high trust is though personal relationships, but it does not scale. The other way is to rely on other people's relationships, which scales better. Yet another way is to rely on institutional mechanisms that provide Experiential Sources of Trust, which scale very well, especially when mediated by digital networks.

10. Summary reference: "Yet technology may not be enough without the intellectual understanding and emotional acceptance of others and without considering the context in which the communication is made."

My Comments: Trust is always contextual. 'A' trusts 'B' for C. When trust is broken, people often inappropriately judge the character of the person who broke the trust. Sometimes the trust is broken due to delivery difficulties that have nothing to do with the person's character. Similarly, people often make the mistake to judge the trustworthiness of a person in one context based on another context. Sometimes this transferral of trust is justified, other times it is not. For example, if a person is perceived to have broken a minor protocol (such as playing with a child during adult hours) on a tennis court, is it valid to mistrust that person in a business relationship? How about if the person with whom you are exploring a business relationship tries to stiff you for the bar bill at your first meeting? Context matters for trust, but the trusting person (relying party) also plays an important role of appropriately judging the situation and its context. Technology can help by for example providing transparency about the history of the person's business dealings, which would provide additional sources of trust (proof points) to make a valid judgment.

11. Summary reference: "Choices are important."

My Comments: Absolutely. Relying parties need to be Empowered with the ability to identify and choose their preferred sources of trust. This helps them attain higher levels of trust. For example, would the person prefer to rely on eBay's trust enabling infrastructure or on a face-to-face meeting with a local person on CraigsList? Some people may feel more comfortable with the former, others with the latter. It's their choice.

12. Summary reference: "Interest in others and efforts to understand them help bring trust. We should find out and understand the others’ concerns. The CEO of Blue Nile, a jewelry company, listens to the telephone conversations with customers in order to understand their concerns."

My Comments: There are two mechanisms at play here. The first is the person's "interest in others", which belongs to the Motivators category. The second deals with efforts to understand people, mechanisms that help to Establish trust based on Authoritative Sources (based on what they say), for fast trust.

13. Summary reference: "One can deepen trust by demonstrating respect for differences among interacting parties. Commonality is the basis for trust on the Internet."

My Comments: I agree with the first statement. The respect mechanism is one that Empowers the individual to identify and choose their referred sources of trust from a diverse group. However, although commonality is a Motivator and helps to preserve trust, I am not sure I agree with the context of the statement, which appears to juxtapose it as being different from the first statement. In my mind, they are two complementary conditions for trust in any environment.

14. Summary reference: "If we could establish a world-view and an understanding of professional governance we can enhance trusting. This requires the creating of several separate yet inter-related “spheres” of individual and professional governance that address the issue of trust."

My Comments: Again, I agree. In my paper ""Trust Enabled™ Corporate Governance" (see http://trustenablement.com/local/Trust_Enabled_Corporate_Governance-post...) I make the case for the role of corporate governance in creating conditions for trust:

"Good corporate governance[6] is all about trust[7]; shareholders must trust that the board of directors will exercise their fiduciary duties of care and loyalty[8] to the corporation [in Canada] when monitoring, ratifying and sanctioning (reward and punishment)[9] management (the agents of shareholders) decisions. As well, directors must trust that corporate officers are managing the affairs of the corporation competently and with integrity[ 10]. Investor confidence in capital markets depends on the soundness of this chain of trus t. The sole measure, and the definition for 'good corporate governance'[11], should be the level of trust and confidence shareholder have in the board's effectiveness to establish and maintain this chain of trust."

15. Summary reference: "Yet this highest level of trust is also the most vulnerable to Phishing and con-artists. 'Trust in an online community needs to be considered...in terms of: perceived accountability; liability for violation; and what it means to be a responsible member of a trusted community. How can we meet all of these goals simultaneously remains a question.' However, guarantors can raise difficulties, and require public support."

My Comments: I am not sure I understand this point. From my perspective, the highest levels of trust are attained by aggregating from multiple Experiential (Intrinsic) sources of trust. These levels of trust are best protected (maintained) by strong community interdependence that makes opportunistic behaviour uneconomical by, in the extreme case, banishing the person that has breached the community's trust, knowing that the banished person will find it difficult to join another community.

To the final point, I am not sure guarantors are necessarily needed in high trust scenarios. Remember, a guarantee is a Risk Transfer mechanism used when trust is low. For example, Prosper.com (a peer-to-peer lending service) provides unsecured loans to strangers based on community affiliations of borrowers (they call them groups).

16. Summary reference: "While law may play an important role in the real world, in a virtual world the important role is played by community values---a shared culture, and most importantly, by the leadership which the community must produce."

My Comments: This is an interesting point. I just ran across this issue in Second Life. I perceived a need for laws in Second Life because it is a new virtual frontier that is being settled, including fiduciary laws to address property issues (virtual land, intellectual property, etc.). Some experts with a legal background see Second Life as nothing more than web servers that represent each virtual land mass, therefore being subject to the same laws and legal procedures that apply to any web site. However, Second Life has communities with their own rules and regulations, much like eBay has its rules and regulations, including ADR. So what is a law? How is it different from community rules and regulations that are supported by enforcement mechanisms?

In closing, I would say that I envision multiple online communities, each with its own governance structure. However, I hope that some standardized framework would facilitate the design and interoperability between the communities and link them to the physical world (terrestrial jurisdictions).

Very interesting post, TrustEnabler,

Thanks for sharing it! Would you say then that there are two different types of trust: business and social? Or is trust on a continuum with how much control one desires from the business or social interaction? Do you think in the modern day world that the desire to control territory translates into the desire to own things?

jd2b

Thanks, TrustEnabler,

It reminds me of phishing: cast a wide-enough net and you're bound to catch many low-threshold people.

jd2b