Trusting others is a complex issue. Trust in others is necessary for supportive relationships and overall mental health. We all worry about whether we can trust others. We also need to examine ourselves and decide whether we have too little or too much confidence in others. Let’s take a closer look at these issues.
Source: Peggy and Marco Lachmann-Anke/Pixabay
How to evaluate reliability
Several authors have written about trust in the workplace. Patrick Sweeney, an Army colonel and social psychologist, studied how soldiers trust their leaders. When evaluating military employers, he scrutinized the three Cs: competency, character, and compassion.
Dean Crisp emphasizes the qualities of commitment, compassion, consistency, and competence in his “Four Cs of Building Trust.” These are the characteristics of good employers and leaders that make soldiers and employees believe they can trust their superiors. To gain the trust of others, you must be trustworthy.
Factors within ourselves that predict our ability to trust others
Some people have trust issues. They cannot trust others, no matter how trustworthy they are. The problem is something internal to the person. The ability to trust and have your needs met is formed or not formed in early childhood. If parents or caregivers do not meet a child’s needs, the child may not learn how to trust adults. This can carry over into adulthood. As adults, such people may not know when and how to trust others.
On the other hand, children can also learn to be overly trusting when they are emotionally or physically neglected or abused at an early age. They are vulnerable in childhood and have to rely on adults. Even if it’s an abusive adult or someone you can’t trust to take care of them. This can lead to a pattern in adults of being overly trusting of untrustworthy people.
trust and relationships
Sutherland et al. We believe that trust is not formed genetically, but rather by people’s unique environments. The ability to trust others is a variable in life’s relationships and has different outcomes. Those with an overly trusting personality may be disappointed. You may feel betrayed when you discover that someone you trusted can no longer be trusted. People who overly trust trustworthy and kind people may benefit from high-quality, positive relationships.
People with low levels of trust may avoid people they don’t trust by not interacting with them. But they also miss out on great relationships with very trustworthy people who won’t hurt or exploit them. O’Doherty believes that trust is not something that resides in people’s minds, but is “intersubjective”, relating to relationships between people.
How to tell the difference in reliability between personalities
Homer Martin, MD, and I have noticed in our clinical work that different personalities deal with trust distinctly. The selfish, self-centered personality, or what Dr. Martin and I call the helpless personality, is something few people can trust. They may demonstrate admirably how good they are at ensuring beneficial follow-through in relationships. But a closer look at their behavior reveals that they can drop the ball at work, with family, and with friends. They cannot be expected or trusted to do what they promise.
People who are focused on others, what we call omnipotent personalities, are very trustworthy. Their words of promise are beyond reproach. They do what they say they will do, often to their own detriment. They may work on a project for work all weekend, rather than requesting extra time to complete the task during work hours. Doing so can lead to fatigue, lack of sleep, and a lack of normal weekend relaxation, which can be harmful to yourself. They are unreliable with their own well-being, but not with others.
There are two prominent personality types, so it’s important to understand the differences between them when it comes to trust concerns. Only by doing so can we discern those we can trust and those we shouldn’t, and avoid the pitfalls of misplaced trust, disappointment, and ruptured relationships.
We must also examine what our early life experiences tell us about whether to trust others who have raised us. Only by looking within ourselves and carefully observing others can we put the pieces of the puzzle into place and know when and how to trust ourselves and others.
