In a highly complex environment this type of trust can no longer take the form of personal trust, although this form does still exist, for example when one's doctor is also a family friend. Its typical form is trust in specialized and demonstrable abilities to process information, in functional authority, and, ultimately, in the ability of science to function as an action system.

XREF: Relates to Luhmann's systems theory on trust as social reduction of complexity.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 216