Monday, November 1, 2010

Trust.

Trust!! hmm... let us see; what does trust exactly means? How do you define trust? Or a question that makes more sense, why the hell in this world do I need to explore what is trust. Maybe I don't, maybe the world is beautiful than Moon and I don;t need to add any crap more to it. But yet again and again, even without my indulgence trust is one thing that make s this society run, trust is one thing that makes a evolutionary speaking, trust is one thing that political, economist, psychologist & sociologist work based on there expectation and trust is one thing that's gives us confidence to explore our journey through life. Of course trust isn't everything, there are many more emotions crude or refined, rude or polite, minute or large and aesthetic or ugly but all of those some up.

Expectation and Reciprocation are even important part of all the trust that you gain or put-in. To the degree you believe (s)he will reciprocate at some point in the future in some (often undefined) way, you trust her/him. Of course, past experience—with the person is always in question or with others—will affect that confidence, but in the here and now, certain behaviors and visual cues can also influence if and how much you trust someone:

Familiarity and Consistency: The more contact you have with someone, the more information you collect about him or her. The more information you have, the more confident you can be in your expectations. The more someone behaves with consistency, the better you’re able to establish patterns and form expectations.

Transparency and Flexibility.: The flip side of discretion is transparency. We want someone to keep our secrets, but not her own. Self-disclosure builds trust. Social-exchange theorists have found that people are more likely to trust someone who does not try to explicitly negotiate or force a binding agreement. (Think of the last car salesman you encountered.)

Punctuality: If someone is regularly on time, it not only signals consistency, but also general conscientiousness toward other people. .

Engagement or Face Time: Trust is based on an understood reciprocity. If someone does not even appear to invest in you, he likely doesn’t have much to lose in betraying you. Part of engaging is an effort to make “face time.”

Eye contact (this one is my favorite always does the trick for me!!): This is perhaps the biggest behavioral indicator of trustworthiness. But the quality of the eye contact, also matters. Is it steely or warm? Too much eye contact can be unnerving.

Posture: No one trusts a Slouch or Lousy person. A straight back projects an image of strength and confidence.

Of course, while these behaviors and visual cues might inspire trust, they don’t guarantee trustworthiness.That reminds me of a last lott home. I feel its not a great idea but a very very bad idea to think about such topics.

1 comment:

Ravi Karandeekar said...

Good! I enjoyed reading your views on trust and feel like adding one point - "values and beliefs" of an individual.