A FEW WORDS ABOUT TRUST

WIKIPEDIA SAYS

Trust: In social science it is a relationship of reliance. In computer science it is a system to establish authenticity.

Here is an excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

People do not, or cannot, trust one another if they are easily suspicious of one another. If one assumes the worst about someone—“she is late because she has no regard for my feelings,” or “I bet he is talking about me behind my back”—then one distrusts, rather than trusts the person. Trusting involves being optimistic, rather than pessimistic, that the trustee will do something for us (or for others perhaps); and such optimism is, in part, what makes us vulnerable by trusting. It “restricts the inferences we will make about the likely actions of another. Trusting thus opens one up to harm, for it gives rise to selective interpretation, which means that one can be fooled, that the truth might lie, as it were, outside one's gaze."

Failing to believe in or be optimistic about people's competence also makes trust impossible. If we did not think that certain people were competent in any way, then we would not trust them. We usually trust people to do certain things—for example, to look after our children, to give us advice, or to be honest with us—but we would not do so if we thought that they lacked the relevant skills (including moral skills of knowing what it means to be honest or caring). Rarely, if ever, do we trust people completely (i.e. A simply trusts B). Instead, “trust is generally a three-part relation: A trusts B to do X. To have trust in a relationship, therefore, we do not have to believe that the other person is competent in every way. Optimism about the person's competence in at least one area is essential, however.

While destroying trust is usually quick and almost always dirty, creating trust is often a slow and painful process. The reasons why have to do with what kind of mental attitude trust is. It is not the sort of attitude that we can simply will ourselves to have, although we can cultivate it.

“‘Trust me!’ is for most of us an invitation which we cannot accept at will—either we do already trust the one who says it, in which case it serves at best as reassurance, or it is properly responded to with, ‘Why should and how can I, until I have cause to?’”

So who do you trust? Why do you trust them? Is it because of who they are, what they say, past performance, or a combination?