The encapsulated-interest conception fits three distinct categories of interaction: interactions that fit the model of the iterated oneway trust game, iterated exchange interactions as modeled by the prisoner's dilemma, and interactions in thick relationships. These categories of trust relations represent increasing complexity of the interactions. In all of these interactions, trust is relational. That is to say, my trust of you depends on our relationship, either directly through our own ongoing interaction or indirectly through intermediaries and reputational effects. If we have no or only a passing relationship, we are not in a trusting relationship.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 65