COMP6044   Just another ECS Blogs weblog

The Introduction

Trust is hugely important. In our everyday lives we put a  huge amount of trust in other people as we simply cannot do all of the things that we have to do to be able to get by. We depend on doctors to help us out with medical issues because we do not know everything about medicine to be able to treat ourselves; we put our trust in them. The same happens in the case of teaching, our finances and basically everything that we do. As we now begin to spend more and more of our time online; from shopping to socialising with friends to the rest, the trust that we have in the physical world now has to move with us into the virtual one.

In the real world we can however at least see the person we are interacting with and whilst we put our trust in that person who claims to be a gas inspector and let them into our house on the basis of no more than a badge, we have a security blanket in place in that we are at least there to monitor. In the online world however  you cannot see that person and so trust takes on a different perception. What drives the trust that we put in others when online is really interesting and something that I am going to be examining from sociological and psychological points of view.

Sociology is the study of society; refinement of the body of knowledge in respect of human activity. Psychology by contract looks at the human and his mental functions and operations. The two really work well with one another and complement one another as one hand you have the stud of the individual and his perceptions and what drive him and then subsequently an examination of society as a whole and what drives it.

The core texts in the disciplines will allow me to understand how the two view the issue of trust and in turn allow me to explore how these relate to the Web; why we adopt the notions that we do in respect of trusting people online as an individual and as a society.

References

Sociology

• ‘Introductory Sociology’ – Bilton, Bonnett, Jones, Lawson, Skinner, Stanworth & Webster
• ‘Thinking Sociologically’ – Bauman
• ‘A New Introduction to Sociology’ – O’Donnell.
• ‘An Introduction to Political Sociology’ – Rush

Psychology

• ‘Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology’ – Kolb & Whishaw
• ‘ Psychology: The Science of the Mind and Behaviour’ – Gross
• ‘Psychology: An Introduction’ – Hayes & Orrell