The interrelationship among trust, cooperativity and reliability: an analysis of doctor-patient interaction

Abstract

Trust-related issues have attracted much attention from researchers recently. In the studies on trust, little attention has been paid to its interrelations with cooperativity and reliability. This paper sheds light on the relationship among trust, cooperation, and reliability in a medical context. Through a discourse analysis of the conversations between doctors and patients (including the patients’ relatives) in China, this paper finds that: (i) cooperativity will not directly lead to trust in a medical context; (ii) being cooperative or using strategies to disclaim responsibility will lead to high reliability and will indirectly construct trust; (iii) reliability is a premise for trust in the medical context, and it can be repaired through rapport management strategies, such as empathy discourse if that reliability has been broken down. The research findings in this paper possess both theoretical and practical significance because they will refresh our understanding of the interrelationship among trust, cooperation, and reliability and contribute to the maintenance or enhancement of trust relations between doctors and patients.