Feel Confidence, Feel Trust: Emotional Strategies of Managing Uncertainties During Policy Evaluation and Practice

In this paper, we identify the psychological micro-foundations of trust and confidence and investigate empirically their value in the policy process. Trust and confidence are two distinct psychological strategies for managing uncertainty, but are all too often conflated and used interchangeably to define each other. Management research has shown how organizations aim to project their best face to different audiences. Perceptions of efficacy and moral reliability operate as primary and distinct components of reputation generating feelings of confidence and trust respectively. Here we propose a theoretical model that outlines the distinct psychological mechanisms by which trust and confidence are experienced. To examine how far each can explain perceptions of business performance at different stages in the policy cycle, we analyse data from semi-structured interviews with NGOs regarding feeling confidence and trust towards multinational companies tasked with eradicating slavery in their supply chains. Our analysis maps alternative pathways to trust and confidence using Cognitive Affective Maps. This methodological tool allows us to represent graphically the psychological structures of trust and confidence as systems of interlinked cognitive, affective, and motivational elements, which affect reputational perceptions and policy evaluations among policy makers and the general public.