Random notes on Trust from around the web
I researched trust as part of writing this article: Defining trust so we can increase it. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines trust as assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. Stephen Covey, author of The Speed of Trust, says he prefers a simple definition: you know it when you feel it … trust means confidence. There are many other loose definitions of trust. If you’d like to explore trust further, here are some of my notes.
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My notes
How to build (and rebuild) trust | Frances Frei
Frances Frei (HBS Professor)
Trust is the foundation of everything we do
Redemption ⇒ there’s better version of us around every corner
People CAN change at breaktaking speed
Trust component 3 parts (well understood):
Authenticity
Logic
Empathy
All three are required: if one is missing, it threatens trust
How to trust more ⇒ Address your “trust wobbles”
How to address empathy wobbles
Empathy requires time (and attention)
(Often we don’t provide empathy because we are distracted)
Without empathy, everything is harder
(This can lead to a vicious cycle)
Solution: Identify where, when and to whom you are likely to allow yourself to be distracted
That should trace to —— whom you’re likely to withhold empathy from
Use this to trigger and look up at the people
Listen to them
Immerse yourself in their perspectives
(Put away distraction / cell phones)
How to address Logic wobbles
Logic wobbles come in two forms:
Quality
Ability to communicate
Quality of logic is hard to fix
But, it’s often the case that logic is sound, but the ability to communicate is in jeopardy
Two ways to communicate:
Journey with twists and turns and drams to get to ultimate point (Stories)
Start with your point and give supporting evidence (Scientific)
Frances recommends scientific approach (It lets people follow logically)
How to address Authenticity wobbles
Authenticity is most vexing
We as humans can sniff out in a moment someone is not authentic
SOLUTION ⇒ BE YOU
Easy to do when everyone is the same
Not easy when you are different
We hold back who we are —> this makes us less likely to be trusted —-> which leads to less opportunity
BE your authentic self
Pay less attention to what you think people want to hear
Pay more attention to what you need to say
Leaders need to set conditions to make it’s safe to be authentic (Leaders should welcome / celebrate it)
Takeaways:
Technology often gets in the way of empathy —> Remove it
Peter principle gets in the way of logic —> Educate / train
Coaching to fit in gets in the way of authenticy (it is much easier) —> Reward /celebrate difference
What we don't understand about trust
3 standard / cliche / misconceived views people have about trust:
One's a claim: there has been a great decline in trust, very widely believed.
Polls = bad guides because they don’t take into account a person's individual judgement of another’s trustworthiness.
E.g. Two politicians have different levels of trustworthiness to another person.
The second is an aim: we should have more trust.
This is stupid? More trust is not an intelligent aim.
Intelligently placed and intelligently refused trust is the proper aim.
Aim to have more trust in the trustworthy but not in the untrustworthy.
3 ways to judge trustworthiness
Are they competent?
Are they honest?
Are they reliable?
(These variables can change for a person depending on the situation)
Trustworthiness comes before trust.
Trust is the response.
Trustworthiness is what we use to judge.
The third is a task: we should rebuild trust.
Trust is given by other people.
You can't rebuild what other people give you.
Rather, you have to give them a reason for giving you their trust.
===> all you can do is increase your own trustworthiness.
How to do it?
Be vulnerable.
We should all focus on being more trustworthy and providing better evidence of our own trustworthiness.
How to turn a group of strangers into a team
“Teaming” is teamwork on the fly ⇒ coordinating and collaborating with people to get work done.
Teaming is not like a normal team ⇒ teams are stable, bounded, reasonably small group of people who are interdependent in achieving a shared outcome.
Teaming is becoming more relevant due to the rapid change in the world today
(We don't have the luxury of stable teams anymore?)
Examples:
Hospitals
Animated films
When teaming:
You have to get different expertise at different times,
You don't have fixed roles,
You don't have fixed deliverables,
You're going to be doing a lot of things that have never been done before, and
You can't do it in a stable team.
Teaming is especially important for complex and unpredictable work (and for solving big problems).
How to make sure teaming goes well:
Be humble in the face of a very real challenge
Be curious about what others bring
Be willing to take risks to learn fast
How to avoid culture clash:
Leadership ⇒ leaders at all levels have to be clear they don't have the answers ⇒ "situational humility."
Situational humility + curiosity = psychological safety that allows you take risks with strangers.
We're hardwired to think we know, so we've got to remind ourselves we don’t.
Also, it’s hard to team if you see others as competitors.
Abraham Lincoln said, "I don't like that man very much. I must get to know him better." ⇒ This is the mindset, I have to say, this is the mindset you need for effective teaming.
The Science of Interpersonal Trust (whitepaper)
Interpersonal trust = a willingness to accept vulnerability or risk based on expectations regarding another person’s behavior
This is an important concept for human behavior
It affects our interactions and relationships with others.
Most researchers agree that trust is driven primarily by a combination of cognitive (thinking) and affective (emotional) factors.
Trust may depend on:
characteristics of the person
the situation
prior information about the potential trustee
In a decision to trust, the trustor typically assesses the other’s trustworthiness.
The “Big Three” predictors in trustworthiness research are:
Ability (perceptions of a trustee’s competence and consistency)
Benevolence (perceptions of the trustee’s caring, goodwill, empathy, and commitment to shared goals)
Integrity (perceptions of the trustee’s objectivity, fairness, honesty, and dedication)
We humans have limited processing capacity ⇒ so we use mental shortcuts to simplify the process.
Humans have a limited capacity to process large amounts of complex social information, so we often unconsciously use mental shortcuts (heuristics)
These shortcuts can lead to biases and errors in assessing others’ trustworthiness
Two neural systems may affect human trust decisions by enabling us to understand thoughts and feelings from another’s perspective:
an automatic system that works quickly but learns slowly, is pushed by emotions, and doesn’t do well handling unusual circumstances
a controlled system that operates more slowly but learns more quickly, is more deliberative and shaped by formal reasoning, and adapts well to exceptional circumstances.
Relevant brain regions include the striatum, amygdala, prefrontal cortices, and anterior cingulate cortex.
Some neurochemicals (e.g. oxytocin, vasopressin, and dopamine) are involved in trust decisions.
Studies have shown oxytocin to increase a person’s willingness to be vulnerable within a social interaction.
Trust is impacted by:
Behavioral norms and differences
Cultural norms and differences
Group membership and relational status
Individual differences
Trust versus Trustworthiness
Trust = willingness to accept vulnerability or risk based on expectations regarding another person’s behavior.
Trustworthiness = the characteristics of, and conditions around, the person or thing being trusted, and which facilitate that trust.
Trust is expressed through a decision ⇒ “We decide - sometimes intuitively, sometimes after conscious deliberation –whether to trust.”
“We decide whom to trust, for what purposes, under what conditions, with which resources, and for how long.”
Trust is not always rational
Emotions affect decision making (sometimes in a good way / sometimes in a bad way)
Better to look at trust as social versus rational/irrational?
This is the focus of “social cognitive neuroscience”, which seeks to understand the neurobiological underpinnings of social behavior
Trust is of interest to many fields:
Marketing
Organizational behavior
Strategic management
Industrial/organizational psychology
“one of the few issues on which trust researchers seem to agree is that there is little specific agreement about how to define trust” —> LOL
But they all are focused on the same general concept including:
A subject
An action / behavior
A future action and/or expectation
Trust emerges from a variety of factors:
Trust propensity ⇒ A person’s temperament, personality characteristics, and genetics may cause him/her to be more or less trusting by default. him or her to to be more trusting or suspicious of others generally.
Institution-based structures. Regulation, systems, oversight, and insurance may cause someone to feel more protected and thus increase trust (e.g. degree from Duke).
Reputation ⇒ Prior information and knowledge of someone’s past behavior can influence trust (e.g. academic performance).
Biases ⇒ Cognitive and perceptual shortcuts and cues (e.g. stereotypes, rapid judgments, or responses to facial features) can influence trust.
The sympathetic nervous system activation (SNS, “fight or flight”) can be counterproductive to social engagement / trust
Human behavior does not operate under orderly, universal laws like those that govern problems in physics ⇒ there’s both nature and nurture.
Dictionary definition = firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.
Relationships are built on trust.
Love is built on trust.
Elements of trust:
Intent —> to do well by others
Character —> being honest and sincere and behaving with integrity
Transparency —> you are open with communications / no hidden agenda
Competence —> your ability to do things
Consistently —> Keeping your promises / meeting your obligations
Trust is risky
You trust someone when you are confident that the other person will behave so that beneficial consequences result
E.g. sharing personal info to deepen relationships —> Risk more to build relationships?
Why trust is important? —> we need to feel physically and emotionally safe
Levels of trust:
High trust = open expression of thoughts, feelings, reactions, opinions, information ideas
Low trust = evasive, dishonest, inconsiderate
This compounds at group / team level —> higher trust = better share resources, divide up work, give help to others, accept help from others
Two types of trust:
Interpersonal trust —> trust in someone’s regard for you welfare (privileged information / relational commitment). E.g. Spouse.
Task-related trust —> trust in ability to follow-through. E.g. co-worker.
“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved,” wrote the 19th century Scottish poet George MacDonald.
A bit more recently, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio concluded that, “there is no love without trust.”
We know trust when we feel it, but it’s hard to define with words.
Trust and reciprocity are considered to be the “basis of all human systems of morality.”
Social psychology research divide trust into two types:
Cognitive trust is based on our knowledge and evidence about those we choose to trust.
Affective trust is born out of our emotional ties with others, including the security and the confidence we place in others based on the feelings generated by our interactions.
Oxytocin increases trust
When we feel negative emotions, we are less likely to trust others.
According to studies (e.g. trust games):
We may base our decisions about whom to trust on:
Attractiveness
Familiarity (e.g. do they resemble kin)
Facial features
Trust in strangers increases from childhood to early adulthood, and then roughly remains stable
Trust varies across cultures
As a leader, you want people to trust you.
Trust is a leading indicator of whether a leader is evaluated positively or negatively.
Creating trust (and reestablishing it when you’ve lost) is hard.
3 elements of trust:
Positive Relationships. The extent to which you create positive relationships with other people and groups.
Good Judgement/Expertise. The extent to which you are well-informed and knowledgeable (i.e. technical expertise + depth of experience).
Consistency. The extent to which you walk your talk and do what you say you will do.
Trust is both an emotional and logical act.
Emotionally ⇒ you expose your vulnerabilities to people
Logically ⇒ you assess the probabilities of gain and loss
Dimension of trust:
Predictability
Value exchange
Delayed reciprocity
Exposed vulnerabilities
The Psychology (and Economics) of Trust
Lewin (1936) ⇒ “Every psychological event depends upon the state of the person and at the same time on the environment”
Psychologists and economists have proposed numerous explanations for why we trust.
Trust is multifaceted.
To understand why one person trusts another, we must consider the characteristics of the specific individuals and the situation.
What is the social relationship between the trustor and the trustee?
How does this situation relate to their past experiences and social expectations?
What are the potential benefits and costs?
A Trust Framework Model for Situational Contexts
Trust has been widely studied by researchers in numerous disciplines, but no general accepted agreement on the definition exists.
What is Trust? A Multidisciplinary Review, Critique, and Synthesis
This paper provides a history of the research on trust and calls out how nuanced the varying definitions of trust are.
He recommends we move away from definitional varieties of trust toward a single trust concept built around 4 properties:
Actor A’s beliefs
Actor B’s trustworthiness
The matter(s) at hand
Unknown outcomes.
Random books on trust to check out