Trust

Chapter 1 - Worldview

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Hans Op de Beeck

Welcome to the Trust (and responsibility) page

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• TRUSTː a person given control or powers with a obligation to administer it solely for the purposes specified
• The ability to RESPOND to the given powers

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Core ideas

Trust and responsibility on three degrees of freedom

Defining trust

When do you trust your baker? More precise, when do you react on the proposition "am I your trusted bakery"?

1. If he/she does not sell from a third party (cold baker): autonomy
2. If he/she is friendly in the store: connectedness
3. If he/she bakes delicious bread: competences

Defining resposibility

When/how do you show responsibility as a baker?

1. If you actually participate in the action at the bakery
2. If you show coherent behaviour in the action at the bakery
3. If your behaviour is relevant to the situation

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You can ask for 'trust' and you can give the necessary resources 'to act responsible'

It is a common misconception that you can 'give trust' in formal situations. In fact, you can only ask for trust in formal circumstances.

An example is when the government asks for trust/confidence in parliament. In response, parliament can release the resources (the budget) to govern responsibly.

Leadership can only demand trust and act concerning that trust while releasing the resources for those who trust them to act responsiblyǃ The standard (negative) example is being trusted by leadership to be responsible for something but not given the meansty of the relationship, which can be so strong that people can act irresponsibly together.

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Dive deeper

Dimensional (degrees of freedom) thinking

The trust-responsibility model of Deci & Ryan (references below) is closely related to the 3 dimensional thinking and doing and adds third dimension thinking to 'everyday thinking'.

• Trust
  1. Autonomy (Action dimension)
  2. Connectedness (Evaluation dimension)
  3. Competencies (Potention dimension)
• Responsibility
  1. Participation (Action dimension)
  2. Coherence (Evaluation dimension)
  3. Relevance (Potention dimension)

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The concepts above have some other wording, but the same meaning, in the seminal documents of Ryan and Deci:

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The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior - Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan - Department of Psychology – University of Rochester

SDT is the postulate that humans are active, growth-oriented organisms who are naturally inclined toward integration of their psychic elements into a unified sense of self and integration of themselves into larger social structures. As such, the natural processes such as intrinsic motivation, integration of extrinsic regulations, and movement toward well-being are theorized to operate optimally only to the extent that the nutriments are immediately present, or, alternatively, to the extent that the individual has sufficient inner resources to find or construct the necessary nourishment. Such processes would include, for example, the capacity to compartmentalize rather than integrate psychological structures, the tendency to withdraw concern for others and focus on oneself, or, in more extreme cases, to engage in psychological withdrawal or antisocial activity as compensatory motives for unfulfilled needs. Accordingly, innate psychological needs for ·        autonomy, ·        relatedness, ·        and competence concern the deep structure of the human psyche, for they refer to innate and life-span tendencies toward ·        achieving effectiveness, ·        connectedness, ·        and coherence.

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Psychology of trust

You can trust me

"You can trust me," is self-referential and forward-looking. It is a pledge about one's own future behaviour. Its associated behaviours are being honest, being fair, following through on commitments, and being consistent. Crucially, it is also susceptible to a credibility problem: the phrase is often uttered precisely in situations where trust has not yet been earned, which can make it register as persuasion rather than proof. Integrity - the alignment of words and actions regardless of whether anyone is watching - is the real foundation of trustworthiness, not the declaration itself.

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(and) I trust you

When you say "I trust you," you are doing something psychologically rich and relationally significant: you are simultaneously making a declaration about your inner state and performing a vulnerable act. The statement places you in the role of the trustor, the one who renders a trust judgment and casts the other as the trustee, the party who receives it and carries a new relational obligation as a result. "I trust you" is not merely a descriptive report on your mental state; it is an illocutionary act thatchanges the relational landscape the moment it is uttered. It creates a new shared understanding between people - a kind of social fact - that will shape the expectations and obligations between them.

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Power asymmetry

The difference between these two phrases also carries a power asymmetry . Research on workplace and institutional trust shows that when one party has more power, the burden of trusting behaviour (openness, vulnerability) typically falls on the less powerful party, while trustworthiness (reliability, fairness) is expected of the more powerful one. This maps neatly onto the phrases:

• a subordinate who says "I trust you" to a leader is taking a risk
• a leader who says "you can trust me" is making a promise, but retains control over whether they keep it

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Connectedness (part of trust) versus participation (part of responsibility)

One of the questions I am often asked is: What is the difference between ‘connectedness’ and ‘participation’? This story will hopefully give you a clear picture of the differences.

• “Spacious apartment, five minutes from the station,” is how our downstairs neighbour listed her home on Airbnb without any prior notice. I click through the photos, watching the rooms below ours appear one by one. Eight sleeping places, all immaculately made up with white sheets and blue pillowcases. (The mindset here is: "You can trust me, it' alright, nothing will happen").
• For the past year, the owner’s daughter and son lived there themselves, with a puppy and a newborn baby. They were friendly neighbours, from whom I once borrowed a drill and with whom I regularly chatted in the hallway, in a mix of French, English, and Dutch. Now I feel abandoned. A home is, for me at least, the most important thing there is. A familiar place, where furniture stays in the same spot, where you recognise the smells, where you are no longer startled by the sounds that surround you daily, the voices you hear nearby. I thrive on contact with neighbours, the idea that you form a small community where you give and take, and for that reason, can tolerate a lot from one another. (The mindset here is: "I feel responsible for our little community").

People who put an apartment on Airbnb full-time do not think about that, and in my opinion, there is only one word for it: opportunism. They undermine neighbourliness in co-owned properties.

In our building, there are fourteen apartments, two of which are currently Airbnbs. The permanent residents sleep in 20 beds; the two Airbnbs rent 12 beds. The actual burden on the shared infrastructure is much higher in a building where half the residents are passers-by who come only to enjoy themselves, not to invest in social cohesion. Could the costs of co-ownership not be reviewed so that the owner of each apartment rented out for the short term contributes double their actual thousandths to compensate for the emotional demands placed on them by co-ownership?

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Something completely different: a relationship of trust (confidence)

A completely different meaning is the trust that can arise in a relationship between different people. This is about the quality of the relationship, which can be so strong that people can act irresponsibly together.

Confidence - etymology

From mid-15c. as "reliance on one's own powers, resources, or circumstances, self-assurance." Meaning "certainty of a proposition or assertion, sureness with regard to a fact" is from 1550s. Meaning "a secret, a private communication" is from 1590s. The connection with swindling (see con (adj.)) dates to mid-19c. and comes from the notion of the false "trustworthiness" which is the key to the game.

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