Among all the mental calculations and decisions we make each day as complex social beings, we choose, actively or implicitly, to trust. By staying in our relationships, we trust our partners won’t betray us. By showing up at the stop, we trust that the bus will arrive. By making the reservation, we trust our friends will show up for dinner.

But that trust is fraying.

A 2019 Pew Research Center report on trust found that 71 percent of respondents thought interpersonal trust — in other words, confidence they had in their fellow citizens — had waned over the last two decades. The share of Americans who generally trust one another has dropped to 30 percent since the 1970s, when half of Americans placed trust in others, the authors of this year’s World Happiness Report found. Conversely, each successive generation is less likely than the one before to value honesty. This mistrust extends beyond interpersonal relationships: Hardly a quarter of respondents in a 2024 Pew survey said they trusted the government to do the right thing.

There are a multitude of factors prompting this rise in distrust. Some have suggested economic inequality, technology, and increasing diversity in the US (along with ethnic segregation) are to blame. But a major contributor seems to be political polarization. The 2019 Pew survey, for instance, found that over 40 percent of Americans don’t trust others to cast informed votes in elections or to have civil conversations with those who have differing opinions.

Trust is a necessary component in every relationship. Without it, we’re unable to be vulnerable, to share our dreams, to hold secrets, to feel safe. Hardly anyone would prefer to be made the fool — healthy skepticism can prevent you from clicking on a phishing link in an email or joining a multilevel marketing scheme — but a life of cynicism isn’t preferable either.

“There are a lot of people who claim that they don’t trust anybody,” says Peter Kim, a professor of management and organization at the USC Marshall School of Business and author of How Trust Works: The Science of How Relationships Are Built, Broken and Repaired. “But if that were the case, how could anyone possibly function? You have to be able to trust that when you’re walking down the street, someone won’t shoot you. You have to trust that the meals you order at a restaurant haven’t been poisoned.”

How do we decide to trust?

Trust, according to Oliver Schilke, a professor and director of the Center for Trust Studies at the University of Arizona, is a willingness to make yourself vulnerable to another with the expectation that their actions will be beneficial to you. Research has established that when weighing whether to trust someone, people generally make judgments about their competence, benevolence, and integrity.

Within the first few minutes of meeting someone, we make assessments based on these three factors, Kim says — and that first impression is usually positive. We generally trust others, at least initially. What do we base these judgments on? Others’ appearance, how they speak, whether they grew up in the same hometown, their reputation, whether they look like us. But these cues are imperfect, Kim says. The more we get to know new colleagues, neighbors, friends of friends, the more information we have to go on. We learn whether our initial trust was accurate based on their actions,........

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