From this perspective, trust is established by the gradual escalation of properly conceived and timed reciprocities in personal ongoing exchange relationships. Peter Blau's work on social exchange exemplifies this view of embeddedness as the bedrock of trust: "Social exchange, therefore, entails supplying benefits that create diffuse future obligations. . . . Since the recipient is one who decides when and how to reciprocate for a favor, or whether to reciprocate at all, social exchange requires trusting others. . . . Typically, however, social exchange relations evolve in a slow process, starting with minor transactions in which little trust is required because little risk is involved and in which both partners can prove their trustworthiness, enabling them to expand their relation and engage in major transactions. Thus, the process of social exchange leads to the trust required for it in a self-generating fashion. Indeed, creating trust seems to be a major function of social exchange, and special mechanisms exist that prolong the period of being under obligation and thereby strengthen bonds of indebtedness and trust (1968, p. 454).

Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Imper…, loc. 15