Four questions for trusting distributed trust

Aotearoa remains a high-trust society in a world that is becoming both less and more trusting. Trust is “a psychological state comprising of the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behaviors of another”, which “evolves over [time] due to repeated interactions and a history of reciprocity” (Burke et al., 2007, p. 610). Trust is "something that needs protection just as much as the air we breathe or the water we drink. When [trust is] damaged, the community as a whole suffers; [when] destroyed, societies falter and collapse“ (Nicholson, 1998, p. 584).

Despite the protests in Wellington over Covid-19, most Kiwis generally trust government, democracy, and the overall good intentions of our leaders (we have "institutional" trust; Botsman, 2017). Further, we retain interpersonal trust with our neighbours ("local" trust), and with those in need. Many of us will have helped out strangers, lending property, money or time to assist someone in trouble.  In provincial towns, trust can be "local", because it relies on personal reputation in places where there might be only one or two degrees of separation (Botsman, 2017; Miles, 2022).

Somehow we Kiwis know “how much trust to have” and balance it against “how much control […] to retain” (Statt, 1999, p. 159). We can also look at this a slightly different way: that we have “a confident relationship with the unknown” (Botsman, 2018). It means that we Kiwis are good at trusting others: we have enough confidence to be able to assess and balance risk against societal unknowns (Botsman, 2018; Statt, 1999). 

Away from home though, our trusting behaviour becomes visible. A journalist related that "I had locked myself out and the only way back into the flat was through [an open] ground-floor window", asking a man working on a bike in a nearby garage if he could borrow a ladder. The man "asked, 'do you live in New Zealand?' [...and] I asked how he could possibly guess that? He replied that only a Kiwi would think a Londoner would say 'yes' to lending a ladder to a stranger to get into a neighbouring house" (Miles, 2022).

Trust is like energy. It changes form, evolves, and morphs as society changes around it. Alongside "local" and "institutional" trust, we have “distributed" trust. This is where global networks have allowed us to trust strangers - think international banking, food ordering online, Amazon - that we can pay, and they will deliver. Facilitated by technology, "distributed" trust also allows us to misplace our trust by blindly "trusting other people through technology" (Botsman, 2017); ranging from "the 'anti-vax' movement" to "online extremism" (Miles, 2022). 

How do we protect ourselves? We can ask ourselves four questions to guide us in who we can trust (Miles, 2022).

1. Is the person/source competent (i.e. possessing relevant skills and knowledge)? 
2. Are the person/source reliable (i.e. demonstrate long-term consistent behaviour, words and actions)? 
3. Is the person/source empathetic? 
4. Does the person/source have integrity?

Then we will know.

Sam

References:

Botsman, R. (27 July 2018). Trust-Thinkers. https://medium.com/@rachelbotsman/trust-thinkers-72ec78ec3b59

Botsman, R. (2017). Who Can You Trust? How technology brought us together and why it might drive us apart. HarperCollins. 

Miles, D. (21 February 2022). We're a high-trust society, but we need to be careful who we trust. Stuff. https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/127820266/were-a-hightrust-society-but-we-need-to-be-careful-who-we-trust 

Nicholson, N. (1998). The Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Organizational Behavior. Blackwell Business. 

Statt, D. (1999). The Routledge Dictionary of Business Management. Routledge.