Trust and Distrust: Cognitive Decisions or Social Relations?

Abstract

The issue of consumer trust has repeatedly been raised in relation to food policy events in Europe over the last couple of decades. Based on the project ‘Consumer Trust in Food’ (funded by the European Commission, contract no. QLK1‐CT‐2001‐00291), the paper discusses explanations to variations and changes in trust. Representative population surveys were conducted in Denmark, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Norway, and Portugal. Opinions on trust in food show large and consistent differences across the countries. While trust is high in Great Britain and Scandinavia, levels are generally much lower in Italy, Portugal and Germany. It may seem as if the considerable regulatory and market‐based reforms that came in the aftermath of the BSE crisis have had positive impacts on trust. But trust is based even on other issues than food safety, and people are generally more sceptical when it comes to ethical issues, quality or nutrition. It is argued that cognitive models, focussing on individual risk perception and communication, are insufficient to explain these variations. An alternative approach is outlined, where consumer trust is understood with reference to processes of institutionalisation, strongly linked to normative as well as organisational frames. By considering food consumption as the outcome of complex interrelations between consumers, the market, the state, and civil society, we can identify characteristically different types of conditions for trust. Trust seems to refer not only to shared norms and expectations, but also to the concrete organisation and performance of food institutions, regarding predictability, openness, etc. It is a matter of both organisations' capability and willingness to meet expectations. Historical and cultural conditions as well as rapid shifts may lead to discrepancies between expectations and performance – which may be expressed as distrust – politically and in the market. It is therefore suggested that institutionalising consumer distrust may represent an important way of building trust in modern food institutions.

Keywords:

• Trust
• food consumption
• comparative
• Europe
• public opinion

Notes

1. The project ‘Consumer Trust in Food. A European Study of Social and Institutional Conditions for the Production of Trust’ (TRUSTINFOOD) (2002–2004) was funded by the European Commission, 5^th Framework Programme, Quality of Life, Key Action 1, contract no. QLK1‐CT‐2001‐00291. The project is coordinated by The National Institute for Consumer Research (SIFO) and involves teams at the University of Bologna, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University and Roskilde University in Denmark, CRIC University of Manchester, University of Porto, and the Federal Research Institute for Nutrition and Food in Karlsruhe, Germany. The project website is at www.trustinfood.org. The survey data are in other publications combined with institutional data (Halkier and Holm, 2006; Kjærnes, Harvey and Warde, forthcoming).

2. None of these indices are very precise measures, and what is understood by each of them may be broader than experts' notions of terms like safety or quality. Moreover, an inherent characteristic of generalised and well‐established trust is that it is tacit, unreflected (Kjærnes, 1999), see also below, making the CATI method challenging. Yet, as demonstrated, differences between countries are quite consistent, and there are also systematic distinctions between various food items, institutional actors, and key food issues, all of which suggest that they may be acceptable as indicators/proxies of underlying dimensions of trust in food.

3. The index ranges from 2 to 0, where a result higher than 1 means that the proportion of positive evaluations is higher than the proportion being negative.

4. The levels of R² observed here are common for this kind of data, as an indicator of correlations between the two sets of questions. The aggregate level, explorative nature of the analyses means that efforts to maximize R², for example by introducing more explanatory variables, is of less relevance here. Other analyses of the survey data have used larger regression models (Kjærnes et al., 2006).

5. This is what Seligman (even referring to Luhmann, 1988) has characterised as ‘confidence’ in a system and its institutions, that is the continued functioning of patterned, normative role expectations (ibid, p.20).

6. It is, however, a question whether the establishment of trust in such a situation will imply stronger belief in the goodwill of the other (Seligman, 1997, p. 41), “a leap into uncertainty” (Giddens, 1991), or whether trust even in these cases, as I argue here, is more a question of structures and institutions, as suggested by the observed cross‐country variations in trust.

7. See also Lagerspetz, who sees tacitness as a basic feature of trust (Lagerspetz, 1998).

8. There are a number of other approaches to trust which do recognise a role of distrust, such as the rational choice literature, system theories, as well as studies of social movements, solidarity, and democracy. This paper will not give a comprehensive overview of such a wide array of approaches, but rather mention a very few contributions which seem directly relevant to the discussion on consumer distrust in food. For a further discussion, see Kjærnes, Harvey and Warde, forthcoming).

9. In practice there is no clear distinction between exit and voice. A special choice may reflect issues referring directly to the shoppers' own situation. But the choice may also refer to more general social and ethical issues, as an active response to conditions in the market or to issues outside the domain of consumption (Micheletti, 2003)