Two-Route Models of Trust in Sources of Risk Communication.

We discuss trust in different domains, focusing on studies of risk communication. In this context, trust appears to have two main components: trust in the motives (benevolence, integrity, honesty) of the advisor and trust in the advisor’s competence. Siegrist, Earle and Gutscher’s (2003) refer to these components as (social) trust and confidence, respectively. In their Trust-Confidence-Cooperation (TCC) model, these separate types of trust jointly determine an agent’s degree of cooperation with the source of advice (expressing trust in it, using its advice to form personal assessments of risk, acting on the basis of its advice). We discuss evidence suggesting that different types of cooperative behaviour can be dissociated and assess the implications of this both for the TCC model and for the study of risk communication.