The clues employed to form trust do not eliminate the risk; they simply make it less risky. They do not supply complete information about the expected behaviour of the person to be trusted. They simply serve as a springboard for the leap into a bounded and structured uncertainty. It should not be assumed, therefore, that empirical research will yield strong law-like relationships between bases for trust, treated as causes, and demonstrations of trust, treated as effects, but one may expect there to be statistical correlations

XREF: Connects to game theory and behavioral economics work on trust under uncertainty. Builds on: "Trust requires prior information, even if incomplete or unreliable."

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 171