Trust vs. Crisis

The three social phenomena -- norms, trust, and crisis -- are in this paper combined into one model that illustrates their function and relationship. Crisis is seen as a reaction to serious violations of expectations that leave people disoriented, insecure about situational norms, and unable to judge whom to trust. One logical solution to a crisis is to rebuild a shared understanding of the norms involved in any given context. Banking is used as a case. Central concepts are borrowed from Niklas Luhmann Trust (1968), Alf Ross Directives and Norms (1967), and Arthur G. Neal National Trauma & Collective Memory (1998).