When I started to write on the trust emotion, I took a lot of time exploring my own thoughts. In fact, the dance of ideas and concepts in my head caused a little bit of a writer’s block. However, I am back after having organized my thoughts.
How Do We Look at Trust?
Trust is considered to be an extremely intrinsic part of any human relationship, be it romantic, business related, medical professionals, or friends. It is the foundation stone on which behaviors, actions, and success depends.
Trust can be considered to be a mental attitude that a person or idea is dependable. If an individual or idea make you feel confident and secure, you can be sure that you have trust. Trust manifests itself in behaviors that lead you to treat the other person well, giving them the benefit of doubt and not abandoning them at the first sign of something you do not understand about their actions.
The general world view of trust is that it is something that needs to be earned. Researchers, however, believe that it is an intricate pattern that is created based on our perceptions of self, the other, the situation, and past experiences. We believe in our capability of calculating probabilities based on past experiences to determine whether someone can be trusted in specific situations or not. The reality, in fact, may very well be different.
The Necessity of Trust
Trust is an extremely important aspect of everyday life. We trust that the trains will work on time, the cab driver will appear at our doorsteps after punching a few buttons on the phone, dinner will be laid on the table at 8pm, your son will walk the dog, your mother will pick up the phone if she can, your colleague will reply to your email, and your physician will prescribe the right and necessary medicine to you when you are sick.
Imagine how your actions will be different if you did not have trust that these things will take place? If you doubted your doctor, you may hesitate to take the medication prescribed or may even decide to forgo it completely. You would worry about whether your email will be read and responded to after you send it (at least till the time you receive a response). You will check multiple times whether food is being prepared for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You will obsess over the strategies your business partner is coming up with in order to oust you from the business.
Conscious processing in the brain is an extremely energy-consuming process. Trust is the brain’s way of reducing energy consumption, as you delegate the specific task to a specific person, institution, or even idea (for example, you trust there is a God in heaven and delegate general goodwill to Him).
Without trust, the brain would have to go on an overdrive in trying to consciously process all the activities that we alone are responsible for. That would derail the smooth functioning of an individual and make all of us less productive and less efficient.
A Diagnosis of Trust – New Perspectives
In the modern world, we have lost our ability to trust each other to a large extent. Most of us start with being cautious of a new person or a new idea. Some who trust easily are called naïve and gullible too.
Those who believe that trust needs to be earned rely on sensory perceptions (what we see, what we hear, what we touch, what we smell, and what we taste), past experiences (memories that we have retained as against those that we have forgotten), and belief systems (the kind of people who can be trusted as against those who cannot).
We depend too much on proof, rationality, past experiences, and lay too much faith in our own ability to perceive. A recent video forwarded on social media shared a word that was being said. While some people heard one word, the other half heard another. We have seen enough visual illusions to know that our perceptions of sight, sound, smell, and more are extremely subjective.
Memories of the past are often hazy, modified, and distorted based on thoughts and beliefs. Belief systems are subjective and depend on culture, upbringing, genetics and a host of other extremely non-linear factors.
Trust, in fact, is something your unconscious mind knows better than your conscious mind. If you train yourself in listening to your instincts and your gut (the second brain), you will probably have a better chance of deciphering who can be trusted and who cannot.
Some Important Truths About Trust
More often than not, we start to become skeptical, resentful, and untrusting because we have some unrealistic expectations about what trust means.
Here are some truths about trust that may allow you to trust your gut to tell you when to trust. 😊
- Trust is not absolute – You cannot trust an individual to be trustworthy in all kinds of situations. While you may be able to trust your partner to earn a living for the household, you may not be able to trust him for remembering to pick up bread on the way home.
- Trust is a gut feeling – You just know when you can trust someone. If you start to rationalize and garner critical proof about whether you can trust someone or not, you may find yourself among skeptical people who cannot learn to trust.
- Trust is immediate – While a lot of people believe that trust takes a long time to build, researchers have proven that it takes us less than a second to decide whether we want to trust someone or not. It is only after that first second that we start to process things in the conscious brain about whether we should trust someone or not.
- Trust has to be nurtured – Even when you trust someone intrinsically, you may have to intentionally nurture it in order for it to sustain. There is a conscious effort that may need to be made in order to give benefits of doubt (in moderation) and look at things from a positive angle.
- Trust comprises of integrity, competence, connection, and reliability – You cannot trust someone just because they have integrity. Would you trust your closest friend to perform surgery on you if they do not have the competence?
In summary, know that trust is absolutely essential for easy and proper functioning of our lives and a conscious and intentional effort should be made to inculcate trust.
Check out the other blog posts on Emotions.
Want to speak to me about how trust issues have effected your relationship(s). Get in touch with me for an intro call.
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