Trust is, to many, a fickle issue. Some people say: I trust so-and-so because of so-and-so reasons. Some other people say: Trust needs to be gained/earned. Blah, blah, blah.

Does trust require reason? Does trust require earning?

Yes. In the conventional sense, that is. But how many times have you trusted someone, and that someone repeatedly violates your trust? And yet, how many times have you not trusted someone, and only to discover, many years later, with much chagrin and regret that indeed that someone was actually honest and sincere to you?

Therein lies the greatest flaw of all. Humans think that they know who they can trust, but statistics and many studies have proven otherwise. You don’t know if you can trust a person. If you think you know, you’re wrong. The person whom you trust may, afterall, turn out to be a axe murderer.

People keep mentioning that Trust is subjective, and cannot be measured. But yet it can. A person who has been repeatedly betrayed will be less likely to trust a new person. Or in some extreme cases, a person who has been repeatedly betrayed will be more likely to trust a new person. Statistics are readily available. Trust - it all depends and boils down to the basics of economics: Incentives.

What causes a person to trust one but not the other? An intensive study may be done to understand the human decision (whether conscious or subconcious), but it still boils down to a few things, and incentives is one of them. Other things include pre-disposed discrimination (which leads to the incentives part), and in more metaphysical/philosophical mannerisms, the human concept of self.

Trust itself, is an expectation (human concept of self - about expectations) that another person won’t act oppotunistically (incentives at play). Some people have identified a few key dimensions to a trust, namely:

• Integrity (How honest a person is, how well he/she keeps to promises)
• Competence (Work based trust revolve round this)
• Consistency (Also work-based trust)
• Loyalness
• Openness

So, back to my questions: Does trust require reason, and does it require earning?

From personal experience, no. No matter how much reason you give a person, no matter what you do to gain a person’s trust in conventional sense, if a person has pre-disposed discrimination against you, or you do not offer enough incentive for the person to trust you, then you won’t get trust from that person at all.

Here, I am going to dissect something very personal in regards to trust. It’s not my story personally, but to simplify things, I’m going to write it as if it were my own.

When a girl dumps a boy (or vice versa) for another who is seemingly less attractive (not only physical looks, of which most people have pre-disposed discrimination against, but other things, like falling for a bad boy or something), we can take the relationship and dissect it.

The parting had had been on good terms, but the relationship had gone through some trust issues. The girl simply told the guy, “I don’t love you anymore. I found someone else better. Besides, we’ve have had some trust issues in the past, and I trust that guy more now.“. Naturally, the guy would want to find out who the other person is, and once it is known, and the other person is worse than the first guy (for example, the “someone better” turns out to be a blackmailing gangster). So the guy asks himself: “What the hell am I lacking? Can I not provide her enough? What’s so good about this other guy, even when it is proven to her that he’s a gangster?”

The fundamental question that the guy didn’t ask was the question on incentives. The gangster may provide the girl with more comforts, such as emotional support, and so on and so forth, that the guy, due to previous trust issues, is unable to provide. Blind as it seems the guy may be, but when you’re in a shitty situation, you won’t realize that you’re in the shit, just like a frog that is slowly being boiled.

So, what makes the girl trust the gangster more than the boy (who happens to be tops in everything, an all rounder)? Incentives. The gangster gives the girl more reason to trust him. He may have given her all the emotional support she needs, and given her the blind support that she craves. Also, there was less incentives to trust the boy, due to past experience.

What can be done? The boy can give extra incentive to the girl, but this is rather pointless, because of the stone wall that is past experience, which causes a pre-deposited discrimination against him. Another way is to destabilize the trust between the girl and the gangster, and although this can be done (wait till I restore my old blog archives. I had an article on different ways to sow distrust), it is also mostly pointless. Trust can best be likened to blind faith (actually, blind faith in some divine being is also a form of trust), and if a person has blind faith toward another, nothing can shake it, save the other. The only thing to do is wait. Because gangsters usually kill their lovers. The fatal choice had been actually made, but can still be reversed.

The same reason why people put up an open front (in their blogs, etc) is because they want people to see them as more open. But deep down within, some know, that it’s all falling apart. The trust issue is that they want people to trust them. I have never really trusted anyone reading this blog, knowing that I get about 3000 hits perday (now.. was higher earlier in the year), you never know what sort of malice people are up to. Hence you’d never see my picture here on this blog. I don’t put up an open front in my blog. (wow… that’s some form of hypocracy, I bet. Just gotta look it up)

So, trust - How do you know you can trust me?

You don’t. But I give you my word I’m not the axe murderer next door. Whether or not you can trust that statement, is up to you (discounting the “murder” stunt in my blog in 2004, of course).

Me? When I trust someone, I trust them fully, to the end of the earth. When I don’t, I don’t. I am never guarded with what I say, unfortunately.

This is dedicated to the three ladies with trust issues in their lives. May you read this on, and hopefully have the courage to pursue further what you wish, and has been inspired by the blog post “I Wish There Were More People Like This” by Stephen Dubner in the Freakonomics blog.

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