Trust is an expectation that an individual will act in a positive way toward other members of the relationship, based on an assessment of previous behavior.
This assessment of previous behavior is key; we decide who to trust based on what we observe about that person.
IN CONTEXT
You can't go up to people you just met and say, “You can trust me.” They aren't going to take you at face value; they're going to say, “Who are you, and why should I trust you?” In fact, it might lead them not to trust you should you approach them like that. People are instead going to observe how you behave at work and in social situations, and then come to their own determinations about you.
If they haven't seen you behave, perhaps if you’re in a new position at work, they're going to depend on the stories of others: What do other people say about you either in terms of your work record or in a social situation? What do your friends and your neighbors say about you?
Either what we observe or what we hear from others is going to help us determine our level of trust.
Thus, we believe people are credible in terms of what they do or say. Relationships play an important role in our decision of who is credible.
EXAMPLE
Let’s say you need to hire a handyman. You’re looking through the paper, and trying to make some decisions. Then you ask your neighbor, who says, “Oh, Joe's great. I know him; you can trust him.EXAMPLE
We can also see this in social media. On LinkedIn, many people network in order to get jobs, recommendations, or referrals. Or there’s the traditional style of networking in which you go to an event, and you meet people and give out your business card.All of these are examples of relationships that we're building; credibility is related to trust, which is related to our relationships.
EXAMPLE
Let's say you're looking for a new doctor. You may check out what recommendations are online for a particular physician, but more often, you probably just ask someone that you know: “I'm looking for a good dentist. Do you know anybody? Who do you go to?”Once again, we depend on our relationships and what we hear from others to make decisions about authority and credibility.
Another factor to mention in terms of how we make decisions is attribution bias, or a tendency to assign more positive traits to members of one's own group and more negative traits to non-members.
We tend to want to trust people that are more like ourselves; we feel more comfortable around people with whom we share histories and backgrounds.
For that reason, we tend to give more credence to what these people might say or do. We have a tendency to trust them more than we trust those who are not like ourselves or are unfamiliar to us.
In many cases, this attribution bias can be more powerful than evidence itself. We go with this feeling we have about an individual based on how much they are like us rather than on direct evidence.
Conflict can damage trust because we see behaviors that don't match what we originally thought about an individual. As you know, conflict can result from either something emotional or something physical; you were disappointed in some way.
EXAMPLE
A person that you trusted never called, emailed, or got in touch at all when you were going through a very difficult time. You’re now wondering, “How can I trust this person? Is this person really who I thought they were?"EXAMPLE
Or perhaps you loaned someone some money or something else of yours, and they won't return it. This person keeps making excuses, and this damages your trust.In a conflict resolution process, trust is very important; both parties need to feel that they can trust the conflict-resolver. In order to accomplish that, the conflict-resolver must make sure that they give equal treatment to both parties; both parties should feel that they are being treated with the same amount of respect.
If you are a conflict-resolver, you should ensure right up front that both parties know:
You should set up these conditions at the very beginning of the process so that both parties trust you as the person who is helping to mediate or resolve the conflict.
Source: Adapted from Sophia tutorial by Marlene Johnson.