Admission requirements
This course is available for students of the Honours College Humanities Lab.
Students in the first year of their bachelor's programme who achieve good academic results and are very motivated, may apply for a place in Humanities Lab.
Description
Trust is a cornerstone of human sociality. It is crucial for individuals’ emotional health and for societal cohesion and progress. Trust has been extensively studied in economics, organizational studies, sociology, business, and management, where the focus has been on institutional and “macro” aspects of trust. Researchers in these fields generally identify three sources of trust: reason (what may be rationally expected), routine (what is taken for granted), and reflexivity (what is agentively (re)constructed based on intentionally produced signals). A fourth and defining element in the trust-building process is the leap of faith, that is, the ability to trust under uncertainty. The leap of faith places the trust-building process partly outside rational calculation and within the realm of human bonding and affect, and at the same time makes it amenable to empirical study, so long as reasons for trust can be identified.
In this course, we overview the field of trust research, focusing on face-to-face encounters and the role of language and discourse in the trust-building process. We also investigate the complex ways in which language interacts with paralinguistics (prosodic, facial, and kinesic clues) to foster trust. A central goal is to establish potential cross-linguistic patterns in the linguistic construction of trust: how do speakers of different languages establish trust? This question has both theoretical significance for (pragmatic) language diversity and practical significance for possibilities of trust-building among individuals from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
Course objectives
Shared transferrable skills attained:
analysing
generating solutions
project-based working
oral presentation
written presentation
presenting
In this course students will:
familiarize themselves with academic writings from multiple disciplines (sociology, economics, organizational studies, linguistics);
learn to synthesize the findings of multiple disciplines and develop an understanding of a complex socio-psychological phenomenon (trust) from multiple disciplinary perspectives;
develop short empirical (e.g., questionnaire surveys) or review projects based on their readings;
develop academic writing skills;
develop presentation skills.
Tra
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Courses of the Humanities Lab are scheduled on Friday afternoon from 13.30 to 17.00.
Mode of instruction
SEMINAR
Assessment method
Assessment
Participation: 20%
Presentation: 20%
Response paper: 20%
Final paper: 40%
Weighing
As shown above.
Attendance
Attendance is compulsory for all meetings (lectures, seminars, excursions, etc.). If you are unable to attend, notify the lecturer (listed in the information bar on the right) in advance. Being absent may result in lower grades or exclusion from the course.
Resit
It is only possible to revise and re-submit the final paper. The revision should be completed within 10 days of the original assessment. If, after re-submission, the final paper achieves a passing grade, that will be the grade for the course (ie, the other components will be disregarded).
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Indicative bibliography:
Bachmann, R. and A. Zaheer (eds.) (2006) Handbook of Trust Research. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Candlin, C.N. and J. Crichton (eds.) (2013) Discourses of Trust. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Feldman, G., H. Lian, M. Kosinski and D. Stillwell (2017) Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty. Social Psychological and Personality Science 8 (7): 816–826.
Marková, I. and P. Linell (2014) Dialogical Approaches to Trust in Communication. Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Möllering, G. (2006) Trust: Reason, Routine, Reflexivity. Oxford: Elsevier.
Nooteboom, B. (2006). Social capital, institutions and trust. (Center Discussion Paper; Vol. 2006-35). Tilburg: Organization.
Pelsmaekers, K., G. Jacobs and C. Rollo (2014) Trust and Discourse: Organizational perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Watson, R. (2009) Constitutive practices and Garfinkel’s notion of trust: Revisited. Journal of Classical Sociology 9(4): 475–499.
Assigned readings (ca. 50 pages) will be made available via uploading on Brightspace. They should be read before class to enhance the level of class discussion.
Registration
Students participating in this module will be enrolled in MyStudymap by the Education Administration Office of Humanities Lab. Students register for the Humanities Lab modules about two to three weeks before the start of the module through an online form. More information and the link to the form will be provided by Umail.
Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs
Not applicable.
Contact
Lecturer: Prof.dr. M. Terkourafi
Humanities Lab office: e-mail
Remarks
This course is part of the Humanities Lab programme, visit the website for more information.
Visit the Honours Academy website for more information about the Honours College.