Charting the landscape of trust: a comprehensive activity-based approach to understanding social trust dynamics
Abstract
The aim of the article is to justify the necessity of applying an activity-based approach to the study of trust. The methodological basis of the research was a complex of methods, heuristically and epistemologically justified by the goals and objectives of the work. The authors took into account both coherent scientific works and alternative theoretical approaches. The research employed a systemic-comprehensive analysis as well as general scientific methods: analysis, synthesis, and comparison. The conclusion drawn in the study is that existing concepts of trust research have several drawbacks that prevent a comprehensive analysis of the trust formation process. The conceptualization and systematization of the obtained results allowed the development of a "Conceptual Map of Trust Research." The scientific outcome is the introduction of the category of "social trust space," which allows defining its static and dynamic structural elements and describing the process of its formation. The developed model of trust formation in a particular social space under the influence of external and internal factors, based on an activity-based approach to trust research, enabled the construction of a parametric model of this process, involving interconnected and step-by-step application of various forms, methods, and means of a comprehensive activity-based approach to trust research.
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