Swift Trust in Ad Hoc Teams: A Cognitive Task Analysis of Intelligence Operators in Multi-Domain Command and Control Contexts

Abstract

Trust is important for establishing successful relationships and performance outcomes. In some contexts, however, rich information such as knowledge of and experience with a teammate is not available to inform one’s trust. Yet, parties in these contexts are expected to work together toward common goals for a relatively brief and finite period of time. This research investigated the antecedents to quickly-formed trust (often referred to as swift trust) in fast-paced, time-constrained contexts. We conducted a cognitive task analysis (CTA) based on 11 structured interviews of subject-matter experts (SMEs) in Intelligence (Intel)—a heterogeneous job category comprising distributed and co-located personnel within multi-domain command and control (MDC2) environments. Eight antecedents to swift trust emerged from these interviews (i.e., ability, integrity, benevolence, communication, mission-focus, self-awareness, shared perspectives/experiences, and calm), with further analysis implying that swift trust is a relevant and emergent state in MDC2 that facilitates reliance. These findings offer implications for teams operating in high-risk distributed contexts and should be expanded through basic experimental investigations as well as applied initiatives.

A Naturalistic Investigation of Trust, AI, and Intelligence Work

“…Vogel, et al (2021) assessed the impact of AI on intelligence analysis, although their focus was on the broader analytic culture, rather than analysis itself. Capiola et al (2020) examined the factors affecting how teams of intelligence professionals rapidly build trust in each other, although their work was focused on human–human trust (not human–AI trust). There remains a gap in the research of understanding how analysts gain and lose trust in AI in the context of challenging intelligence work.…”

“I Think You Are Trustworthy, Need I Say More?” The Factor Structure and Practicalities of Trustworthiness Assessment

“…On this note, we have followed the speculation of many scientists before us in assuming that McAllister's (1995) model of cognition-and affect-based trust can also correspond to cognition-and affect-based trustworthiness, respectively (e.g., Dirks and Ferrin, 2002;Colquitt et al, 2007Colquitt et al, , 2011Capiola et al, 2020). Indeed, this common assumption has been highlighted explicitly in trust research.…”

“…In a review of measures of trust in organizational literature, McEvily and Tortoriello (2011) explicitly conclude that if one were to assess trustworthiness beliefs, measures developed by both McAllister (1995) and Mayer and Davis (1999) are viable options. It is thus no surprise that through leveraging Mayer et al 's (1995) nomenclature, researchers have described cognitionand affect-based forms of trustworthiness as antecedents to one's willingness to be vulnerable to another (e.g., Capiola et al, 2020). For instance, Colquitt et al (2011) classified ability and integrity as cognition-based trustworthiness perceptions and benevolence as an affect-based trustworthiness perception when they investigated whether these were related to trust in contexts comprising differential predictability.…”

“…With the results of Tomlinson et al (2020) in mind, it remains to be seen if trustworthiness can be further simplified into cognitive and affective dimensions, as previous research (e.g., Colquitt et al, 2007;Capiola et al, 2020) has proposed, or if the three-factor structure proposed by Mayer et al (1995) is a better fit. Though researchers leveraging the two-factor solution have showed they do predict relevant criteria (McAllister, 1995;Coovert et al, 2017), it is not clear whether trustworthiness more accurately (and practically) comprises ability, benevolence, and integrity dimensions or cognition-and affect-based dimensions.…”

The Same or Different? Investigating Whether Trust and Distrust Are Orthogonal Constructs or Span a Continuum

“…Trust research has implications for the multidisciplinary fields of system sciences and information systems [14; 15], particularly computermediated interaction (e.g., [16,17]). As interactions become more distributed and teams of teams become more heterogeneous in their composition, understanding when and why trust impacts performance outcomes will continue to increase in importance (e.g., [18]). As such, having an appropriate conceptualization and measurement of the trust construct will aid researchers in testing hypotheses pertaining to trust and uncovering how it influences interactions in a multitude of contexts.…”