Inviting or Avoiding Deception Through Trust? Conceptual Exploration of an Ambivalent Relationship

The paper explores conceptually the relationship between trust and deception. The author advances five main propositions, which concern deceptive signals of trustworthiness,the suspension of uncertainty in trust, the moral implications of trusting and deceiving, the trustor’s self-deception, and the reversibility of trust. The overall conclusion is that trust and deception both enable and prevent one another and that this ambivalent relationship...