Situating Trust in Cartography: Why do People Trust Maps and What does Trust in Maps Mean?

Abstract

A longstanding assertion among cartographers is that people place a great deal of trust in maps. Despite this claim and the growing importance of understanding trust in a post-truth society, research on trust in cartography is scarce. It remains unclear why, how, and if maps are inherently trustworthy. Moreover, the existing research on trust in maps fails to define trust, or uses inconsistent definitions that muddy whether trust is actually being studied or not. This paper sets out to situate trust in cartography by examining the arguments as to why people may trust maps more than other kinds of information and by exploring how trust has been defined. I propose five reasons as to why maps may be inherently trustworthy, owing to their authoritative, objective, realistic, ubiquitous, and useful nature. I buttress each of these reasons with psychological theory and I discuss variable-specific characteristics of maps that may affect trust. Additionally, I generate a theoretical definition of trust in maps by extracting key components from existing definitions and conceptualizations. This definition emphasizes that trust in maps revolves around relying on the visual geospatial information interpreted from a map and on believing the map is accurate.