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What happens when the person, belief, or thing you placed your trust in begins to unravel? What can you do when the trust you once had is now gone? Trust can be fragile and often needs intentional cultivation.
Trust is a fundamental aspect of meaningful interactions, developing confidence in individuals, organizations, and governments. It is a persistent trait in many living organisms, playing a crucial role in early human survival within healthy social communities.
It’s worth noting that trust is often misunderstood and negatively perceived. People tend to focus on the potential risks, fears, harms, and losses associated with trust rather than recognizing its positive impacts on our psychological well-being.
At one point, I felt that all trust, for me, had vanished. I kept encountering people, organizations, and experiences where trust was an impossibility. These untrustworthy encounters can lead to isolation, which further intensifies distrust. That’s when I decided to reevaluate what trust truly is and explore how it can be restored and repaired. I realized that trust has three staples: transparency, authenticity, and accountability. Moreover, your body can serve as a valuable guide in identifying trust.
Your Body Tells You Who to Trust
Recognizing indicators and paying attention to your body’s cues can help you discern who and what to trust. Trusting someone can induce relaxation and comfort. Affirmative body language, such as maintaining an open posture and engaging in eye contact when physically possible, conveys trust and fosters a sense of connection.
Signs Your Body Displays When You Can Trust
By identifying these body indicators and cues, you can assess your level of comfort and the reliability of individuals and experiences you encounter.
Emotional Signaling: A gentle, calm, soothing, and comforting feeling in your gut often indicates that you can trust the situation or the person. However, if you feel an uneasy, sinking sensation or discomfort, it may suggest mistrust.
Body Language and Nonverbal Cues: Maintaining eye contact can show confidence and trustworthiness. Smiling and relaxed facial expressions can suggest comfort and trust for individuals who can physically exhibit such expressions.
Physical Reactions: A relaxed posture with a comfortable stance can indicate openness and trust, again depending on the individual’s physical ability to express this posture. You may also feel a sense of warmth in your body when engaging with a trustworthy individual or environment, which can signal comfort with that person. Calm, steady breathing suggests that you may feel safe and secure.
Behavioral Indicators: Feeling open and comfortable sharing personal information and lived experiences can reflect mutual trust. Being present and attentive when interacting with others can indicate that you are in a trusting environment.
For context, let’s take a look at trust from the perspective of social media.
Trust Perceptions and Factors Influencing Trust in Social Media and Society
Whether you’re a regular, casual, or never user, research on social media has revealed some fascinating insights into trust.
Social media trust is influenced by several factors, despite misinformation and fake news. Content quality, transparency, user engagement, and self-confidence contribute to trust. Informative, engaging, and valuable content builds credibility, encourages interaction, and boosts user-generated content. Transparency about policies and practices enhances trust. Self-confidence in identifying misinformation also plays a role. Users who believe they can accurately verify information trust the platform more. Trust is crucial for social functioning, healthy relationships, civic engagement, equitable access, and promoting cooperation in divisive interactions. If social media platforms, government regulators, online services, and AI use transparency, authenticity, and accountability, users may rebuild trust.
Research has revealed that while we yearn for trust, it’s natural to harbor mistrust and distrust when the world is grappling with challenging economic, political, or global events. The failure of global governments to be transparent further intensifies this mistrust, leading citizens to perceive them as incapable of providing the three trust staples. This, in turn, damages trust even further.
Trust, a multifaceted concept, has been extensively explored across numerous fields, including social sciences, psychology, technology, economics, workplaces, artificial intelligence, risk management, media, and public projects. Its profound significance in our lives underscores the importance of working hard to rebuild trust when it’s broken.
Building and Rebuilding Trust
Trust-building is all about effectively applying transparency, authenticity, and accountability to build trusting relationships and trustworthy environments, fostering safety and confidence with space for vulnerability.
You may have concerns about building trust in a world where people and organizations often fail to demonstrate it. While it may not be easy, it’s definitely worth the effort to explore trust for yourself. Here are some valuable steps for trust-building:
- When building trust, be open and honest with others. People value transparency and want to know what you’re thinking and doing. This helps them connect with you on a deeper level.
- Make a conscious effort to treat others with openness, authenticity, and respect from the start. This level of transparency can encourage them to reciprocate the same treatment towards you and others.
- Consistency is crucial when building trust. People are more likely to trust those they know they can count on. As you apply consistency, it becomes easier to do.
- It’s important to acknowledge that in some cases, trust may not be warranted. Your body indicators and cues can guide you in this regard. If you feel that trust cannot be given, honor your decision.
- Building trust is a gradual process that requires patience and time. Avoid rushing the process, being inauthentic, or compromising what you know. If you’re committed to being trustworthy yourself, you’ll find it easier to build trust and connect with others who share your trustworthiness.
Choosing who and how to trust, along with beliefs about trust, significantly impacts our psychological well-being.
When trust is gone, you can feel hopeless and helpless. You may begin to believe that you can’t trust anyone. In that moment, you may recall times when your body signaled you could trust, and how safe and desirable it felt. Let your body guide you to those people and experiences, and practice the five steps outlined for rebuilding trust.
