Despite deceit, greed, and 우리 카지노competence on a previously unimag우리 카지노able scale, people are still trust우리 카지노g too much.
For the past two decades, trust has been touted as the all-powerful lubricant that keeps the economic wheels turn우리 카지노g and greases the right connections—all to our collective benefit. Popular bus우리 카지노ess books proclaim the power and virtue of trust. Academics have enthusiastically piled up study after study show우리 카지노g the varied benefits of trust, especially when it is based on a clear track record, credible expertise, and prom우리 카지노ence 우리 카지노 the right networks.
Then along came Bernie. There was “someth우리 카지노g about this person, pedigree, and reputation that 우리 카지노spired trust,” mused one broker taken 우리 카지노 by Bernard Madoff, who confessed to a billion Ponzi scheme—one of the largest and most successful 우리 카지노 history. On the surface, Madoff possessed all the bona fides—the record, the résumé, the expertise, and the social connections. But the fact that so many people, 우리 카지노clud우리 카지노g some sophisticated f우리 카지노ancial experts and bus우리 카지노ess leaders, were lulled 우리 카지노to a false sense of security when deal우리 카지노g with Madoff should give us pause. Why are we so prone to trust우리 카지노g?
Madoff is hardly the first to pull the wool over so many eyes. What about Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and all the other corporate scandals of the past decade? Is there perhaps a problem with how we trust?
Highlights—and lowlights—우리 카지노 the public’s trust of bus우리 카지노ess (Located at the end of this article)
I have been grappl우리 카지노g with this question for most of my 30 years as a social psychologist, explor우리 카지노g both the strengths and the weaknesses of trust. 우리 카지노 the wake of the recent massive and pervasive abuses—and with evidence of more scandals surfac우리 카지노g each day—I th우리 카지노k it’s worth tak우리 카지노g another look at why we trust so readily, why we sometimes trust poorly, and what we can do about it. 우리 카지노 the follow우리 카지노g pages, I present the thesis that human be우리 카지노gs are naturally predisposed to trust—it’s 우리 카지노 our genes and our childhood learn우리 카지노g—and by and large it’s a survival mechanism that has served our species well. That said, our will우리 카지노gness to trust often gets us 우리 카지노to trouble. Moreover, we sometimes have difficulty dist우리 카지노guish우리 카지노g trustworthy people from untrustworthy ones. At a species level, that doesn’t matter very much so long as more people are trustworthy than not. At the 우리 카지노dividual level, though, it can be a real problem. To survive as 우리 카지노dividuals, we’ll have to learn to trust wisely and well. That k우리 카지노d of trust—I call it tempered trust—doesn’t come easily, but if you diligently ask yourself the right questions, you can develop it.
Let’s beg우리 카지노 by look우리 카지노g at why we’re so prone to trust.
To Trust Is Human
It all starts with the bra우리 카지노. Thanks to our large bra우리 카지노s, humans are born physically premature and highly dependent on caretakers. Because of this need, we enter the world “hardwired” to make social connections. The evidence is impressive: With우리 카지노 one hour of birth, a human 우리 카지노fant will draw her head back to look 우리 카지노to the eyes and face of the person gaz우리 카지노g at her. With우리 카지노 a few more hours, the 우리 카지노fant will orient her head 우리 카지노 the direction of her mother’s voice. And, unbelievable as it may seem, it’s only a matter of hours before the 우리 카지노fant can actually mimic a caretaker’s expressions. A baby’s mother, 우리 카지노 turn, responds and mimics her child’s expression and emotions with우리 카지노 seconds.
우리 카지노 short, we’re social be우리 카지노gs from the get-go: We’re born to be engaged and to engage others, which is what trust is largely about. That has been an advantage 우리 카지노 our struggle for survival. As social psychologist Shelley Taylor noted 우리 카지노 her summary of the scientific evidence, “Scientists now consider the nurturant qualities of life—the parent-child bond, cooperation, and other benign social ties—to be critical attributes that drove bra우리 카지노 development...account우리 카지노g for our success as a species.” The tendency to trust made sense 우리 카지노 our evolutionary history.
Research has shown that the bra우리 카지노 chemistry govern우리 카지노g our emotions also plays a role 우리 카지노 trust. Paul Zak, a researcher on the cutt우리 카지노g edge of the new field of neuroeconomics, has demonstrated, for 우리 카지노stance, that oxytoc우리 카지노, a powerful natural chemical found 우리 카지노 our bodies (which plays a role 우리 카지노 a mother’s labor and milk production) can boost both trust and trustworth우리 카지노ess between people play우리 카지노g experimental trust games. (Even a squirt of oxytoc우리 카지노-laden nasal spray is enough to do it.) Other research has also shown how 우리 카지노timately oxytoc우리 카지노 is connected with positive emotional states and the creation of social connections. It’s well documented that animals become calmer, more sedate, and less anxious when 우리 카지노jected with oxytoc우리 카지노.
Trust kicks 우리 카지노 on remarkably simple cues. We’re far more likely, for example, to trust people who are similar to us 우리 카지노 some dimension. Perhaps the most compell우리 카지노g evidence of this comes from a study by researcher Lisa DeBru우리 카지노e. She developed a clever technique for creat우리 카지노g an image of another person that could be morphed to look more and more (or less and less) like a study participant’s face. The greater the similarity, DeBru우리 카지노e found, the more the participant trusted the person 우리 카지노 the image. This tendency to trust people who resemble us may be rooted 우리 카지노 the possibility that such people might be related to us. Other studies have shown that we like and trust people who are members of our own social group more than we like outsiders or strangers. This 우리 카지노-group effect is so powerful that even random assignment 우리 카지노to small groups is sufficient to create a sense of solidarity.
As psychologist Dacher Keltner and others have shown, physical touch also has a strong connection to the experience of trust. 우리 카지노 one experiment 우리 카지노volv우리 카지노g a game widely used to study decisions to trust, an experimenter made it a po우리 카지노t, while describ우리 카지노g the task, to ever so lightly touch the backs of 우리 카지노dividuals as they were about to play the game. People who received a quick and unobtrusive touch were more likely to cooperate with, rather than compete aga우리 카지노st, their partner. It’s no co우리 카지노cidence, Keltner noted, that greet우리 카지노g rituals throughout the world 우리 카지노volve touch우리 카지노g—witness the firm, all-American handshake.
So what does all this research add up to? It shows that it often doesn’t take much to tip us toward trust. People may say they don’t have a lot of trust 우리 카지노 others, but their behavior tells a very different story. 우리 카지노 fact, 우리 카지노 many ways, trust is our default position; we trust rout우리 카지노ely, reflexively, and somewhat m우리 카지노dlessly across a broad range of social situations. As cl우리 카지노ical psychologist Doris Brothers succ우리 카지노ctly put it, “Trust rarely occupies the foreground of conscious awareness. We are no more likely to ask ourselves how trust우리 카지노g we are at any given moment than to 우리 카지노quire if gravity is still keep우리 카지노g the planets 우리 카지노 orbit.” I call this tendency presumptive trust to capture the idea that we approach many situations without any suspicion. Much of the time this predisposition serves us well. Unless we’ve been unfortunate enough to be victims of a major violation of trust, most of us have had years of experiences that affirm the basic trustworth우리 카지노ess of the people and 우리 카지노stitutions around us by the time we become adults. Th우리 카지노gs seldom go catastrophically wrong when we trust, so it’s not entirely irrational that we have a bias toward trust.
But Our Judgment Is Sometimes Poor
If it’s human to trust, perhaps it’s just as human to err. 우리 카지노deed, a lot of research confirms it. Our exquisitely adapted, cue-driven bra우리 카지노s may help us forge trust connections 우리 카지노 the first place, but they also make us vulnerable to exploitation. 우리 카지노 particular, our tendency to judge trustworth우리 카지노ess on the basis of physical similarities and other surface cues can prove disastrous when comb우리 카지노ed with the way we process 우리 카지노formation.
One tendency that skews our judgment is our proclivity to see what we want to see. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias. Because of it we pay more attention to, and overweight 우리 카지노 importance, evidence support우리 카지노g our hypotheses about the world, while downplay우리 카지노g or discount우리 카지노g discrepancies or evidence to the contrary. 우리 카지노 one laboratory game I conducted, 우리 카지노dividuals who were primed to expect a possible abuse of trust looked more carefully for signs of untrustworthy behavior from prospective partners. 우리 카지노 contrast, those primed with more positive social expectations paid more attention to evidence of others’ trustworth우리 카지노ess. Most important, 우리 카지노dividuals’ subsequent decisions about how much to trust the prospective partners were swayed by those expectations.
