馃攳
The Psychology of Trust | Anne B枚ckler-Raettig | TEDxFrankfurt - YouTube
Channel: TEDx Talks
[0]
Transcriber: Ivana Krivoku膰a
Reviewer: Mile 沤ivkovi膰
[3]
When I was a child,
[6]
I remember playing outside
and out of my parents' sight for hours.
[11]
The neighbors' kids,
my little brother and I,
[13]
we would climb trees in the woods,
build hideouts, wade in the river,
[18]
meet new friends,
[19]
and only much later did it strike me
how much trust this must have required
[24]
on my parents' side.
[26]
Trust in the people we would meet,
trust in the older kids,
[29]
but also trust in me.
[32]
I often wondered whether and how
their trust possibly influenced me.
[37]
Then I grew up, I became
a cognitive psychologist,
[40]
and now I investigate the processes
that enable us humans to coordinate
[45]
and cooperate with one another.
[47]
And again I look at trust,
[49]
and I noticed that trust really is
a key component in our social lives.
[55]
I want to share insights with you,
insights from psychology,
[59]
social neuroscience
and behavioral economics,
[62]
to back up my three
favorite points about trust.
[65]
That is that trust can be difficult.
[68]
Trust is dynamic and most of all,
trust is indispensable.
[75]
Especially when we don't know people well,
when we meet strangers for the first time,
[79]
deciding whom to trust
really can be a challenge.
[82]
Nonetheless, we humans make this decision
often within a few hundred milliseconds.
[88]
But what do we base
this important decision on?
[92]
Well, one cue we use to decide
whether or not to trust somebody
[95]
is their faces, their facial features.
[98]
Let me show you two examples.
[101]
Whom of these two guys
would you rather trust?
[106]
Who chooses the left one? Raise your hand.
[109]
Who chooses the right one?
[113]
A few. Yes.
[114]
Your voting nicely reflects
findings from psychology
[116]
showing that people
largely tend to agree on who does
[120]
and who doesn't look trustworthy.
[122]
It's areas around the eyes,
areas around the mouth
[125]
that are relevant here.
[126]
But is the guy on the left
really more trustworthy?
[130]
No.
[131]
So far, there is no concluding evidence
[133]
that people with trustworthy faces
also behave in a more trustworthy manner.
[139]
What else do we use?
[141]
Well, when we meet people
for the first time,
[143]
we look for signals
of authority, of competence.
[147]
We tend to listen to and comply
much more with people
[151]
who are, for instance, dressed like this,
than people who're dressed like this.
[157]
You are all probably familiar
with the famous Milgram experiments,
[161]
that were carried out in the 60s.
[163]
In these experiments,
normal people, people like you and I,
[167]
were invited to a laboratory,
[169]
and they were asked to punish students
for not remembering words correctly.
[174]
Punishment had to be administered
by means of electric shocks.
[178]
Of course, in reality, students
didn't really receive these shocks,
[182]
but participants certainly believed so.
[185]
A surprising number of people,
of people like you and I,
[190]
punished these students by administering
lethal, deadly electric stimulation.
[197]
That is the critical point - they did so
especially when the instructor,
[201]
the one who instructed them
to punish students,
[203]
showed these tokens of authority
and competence, like a white lab coat.
[208]
I think this shows that trusting others
[210]
merely on the basis
of whether they seem competent
[213]
or whether they seem to have authority
[215]
can really have devastating consequences.
[218]
Also, when we meet others
for the first time,
[221]
we tend to listen a lot
to what others have to say about them.
[225]
Their reputation.
[226]
In fact, prior information
we have about somebody else
[230]
can have such a strong influence
on our expectations
[232]
that we entirely ignore
how this person really behaves.
[236]
So we ignore somebody's
trustworthy behavior towards us
[240]
when we already expect him or her
to be untrustworthy.
[246]
These examples, I think, show
that these signals of trustworthiness -
[251]
how somebody's face looks,
somebody's clothes,
[254]
somebody's reputation -
[255]
these signals of trustworthiness,
they aren't so trustworthy themselves.
[260]
This makes deciding
whom to trust difficult,
[263]
because we have to put an effort
into not trusting those
[266]
who might not be
as trustworthy as they look,
[269]
and equally important,
we have to make an effort
[271]
to not deprive of our trust
those who deserve it,
[274]
but might not quite look like it.
[277]
So, we shouldn't judge
strangers too quickly.
[281]
That was all about situations
in which we don't know others well.
[284]
But even after we started an interaction,
we start a relationship with somebody,
[288]
trust isn't something
we can just switch on.
[291]
It is an inherently ongoing,
interactive and dynamic process.
[297]
Psychologists and behavioral economists
have studied trust for many decades.
[301]
They have used very simple paradigms
[304]
in which trust is operationalized,
is measured as an investment.
[309]
An investment of time, effort or money.
[315]
I'll show you one very simple paradigm.
[317]
In this paradigm, in this task,
you have two people:
[320]
person A and person B;
let's call them Alice and Bella.
[324]
They don't know each other, they are
merely connected via an internet platform.
[328]
They might see each other's picture,
[330]
and they enter a formalized,
a very simple interaction
[333]
in which one of them, Alice,
has a certain amount of money.
[337]
Let's say Alice has 100 euros,
[339]
and she can now choose
how much she wants to invest in Bella.
[344]
Let's say she chooses 60 euros.
[347]
Now comes the critical part
of this paradigm:
[350]
this amount is then tripled.
[352]
So, Bella receives three times the amount
that Alice has entrusted her with.
[358]
Now it's Bella's turn.
[359]
Bella can decide how much she wants
to give back to reciprocate to Alice.
[365]
If she chooses 90 euros,
then Bella is left with 90 euros,
[368]
Alice has 130 euros.
[371]
That means that if Alice trusts
and Bella reciprocates,
[375]
both of them end up with more
than they had before.
[379]
Both of them benefit.
[380]
Especially when we have this interaction
continued for several rounds,
[384]
this allows us to really look
at the development, the dynamics of trust,
[388]
and of trust-based relationships.
[390]
This has yielded
really interesting findings.
[394]
For instance, in some people,
in some groups,
[397]
trust declines quickly.
[399]
Cooperation breaks down,
nobody wins, everybody's unhappy.
[403]
By contrast, in other groups,
other people manage to establish
[407]
stable, functioning,
mutually beneficial relationships.
[411]
Everybody wins and everybody's happy.
[413]
What's the difference?
What do those who succeed do differently?
[419]
Well, one thing that those
who manage to establish
[422]
long-term trust-based relationships
do differently is they forgive.
[428]
I think in most relationships
there is a point
[431]
where the other person does not behave
the way we expected her to.
[435]
For instance, and this might be
a bit disappointing,
[439]
because Bella didn't reciprocate
as much as Alice expected her to.
[443]
This can be a misunderstanding,
it can be teasing,
[446]
it can be an active breach of trust.
[449]
In order for the cooperation
to not break down,
[452]
Alice needs to do something.
[453]
Alice needs to overcome
her uncertainty, even her anger,
[457]
and give Bella a second chance.
[459]
She needs to trust in,
invest in Bella again.
[463]
Maybe not five times or six times,
but certainly once or twice.
[466]
That is in fact what the groups
who manage to establish relationships
[470]
that are mutually beneficial
do differently.
[474]
On the side of the other person, Bella,
[476]
there might be situations
when Bella notices,
[478]
"Alice doesn't seem to trust me
that much anymore.
[482]
Alice doesn't invest
that much in me anymore."
[485]
There's also something that Bella can do.
[487]
Bella can actively repair the relationship
by coaxing Alice back into trusting her.
[495]
She can convince Alice to trust her again
[497]
by reciprocating especially much,
for a few rounds.
[502]
So, there is forgiving, there is
coaxing others back into trusting us,
[506]
and how do we do that?
[509]
There is a cognitive skill that is
really crucial for these behaviors,
[513]
and that is perspective taking
or theory of mind.
[517]
We need to take
the perspective of the other,
[519]
put ourselves in the shoes of the other,
[521]
so we need to think about what the other
wants, feels, plans, believes or knows.
[529]
We can only forgive others
if we think about that,
[531]
"Well, maybe there might be
different reasons
[533]
why the other behaved the way she did."
[537]
Also, for coaxing others
back into trusting us,
[540]
we need to consider, "Well, yes,
maybe the other has lost trust in us."
[545]
Not surprisingly do
new scientific findings show
[548]
that brain areas that are involved
[550]
in the process
of taking other's perspective
[553]
are also really important
during trust-based interactions.
[558]
So, taken together, trust is not something
we can just switch on.
[563]
Trust is an inherently dynamic process.
[567]
Saying "I trust you" or "Trust me"
is not the end of the story;
[573]
it is really only the beginning.
[576]
So far, it probably sounds to you
[578]
as if trust is
a pretty effortful business.
[581]
We need to overcome these
untrustworthy signals of trustworthiness
[584]
that I talked about in the beginning,
[586]
and we need to think about
what others are thinking about
[591]
and it sounds all quite strenuous.
[593]
But - and that is the last point -
it is really necessary.
[597]
Trust is indispensable,
[599]
and trust is not really something
that is just nice to have;
[602]
it's not the cherry on the pie.
[603]
I think that trust is the salt
in our social supper, really.
[608]
If you think for a moment
[609]
about these very simple interactions
I just showed you,
[612]
but also if you think
about the interaction you have
[614]
and the relationships you enter,
[616]
and it becomes evident
that without an initial leap of faith,
[620]
without trust,
[622]
cooperations, interactions,
[624]
trust-based relationships
could never be established.
[628]
A very touching example
from the animal kingdom
[631]
involves vampire bats.
[634]
These little creatures
need to feed every night,
[637]
or every second night at the latest,
[639]
otherwise they starve.
[641]
However, every night
up to 30% of them don't catch food.
[646]
That would be quite tragic
[648]
didn't they have specific mutual
friendships with other bats,
[652]
in which food is shared.
[653]
If one bat doesn't catch anything,
[655]
she can go to her friend
and the friend regurgitates blood.
[659]
That is pretty gross,
but that is a life saver.
[664]
This favor is later reciprocated
when the other bat did not catch anything.
[670]
Critical point is that
without an initial leap of faith,
[675]
without an initial incident
of one bat sharing with the other,
[679]
this life-saving reciprocal
interaction or relationship
[684]
could never have been established.
[685]
We need trust to establish relationships.
[689]
What else?
[690]
Another benefit of trust
is that we need trust
[694]
to recognize signs of distrust.
[697]
That sounds funny in the beginning.
[699]
It seems though, and that is
what psychological research suggests,
[703]
that people who tend
to trust others less -
[706]
and that is symbolized by the woman
in the picture who doesn't expect
[710]
anything good to come
from the guy with flowers -
[713]
people who tend to expect
the worst from others
[715]
are also less capable of recognizing
when others are hurt or huffed.
[721]
They don't recognize signs of distrust,
and as a consequence,
[725]
they're less capable, less willing
to repair relationships,
[729]
to coax others back into trusting them.
[732]
As a consequence of that,
[734]
their cooperations
really break down more quickly.
[737]
So, nice example
of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[740]
As odd as it sounds, we need to trust,
[743]
we need to be trustful
to recognize distrust
[746]
and then to repair relationships.
[750]
The final point is
as simple as it is nice.
[754]
We genuinely enjoy being trusted.
[758]
When other people place trust in us,
this makes us feel good;
[760]
it make us fell good about ourselves.
[762]
And initial evidence
from new scientific studies
[765]
shows that our brains
seem to inherently reward us
[769]
for being trusted.
[771]
That's not all.
[772]
Closing the circle, if you will,
[774]
our brains not only reward us
for being trusted,
[777]
but also for being trustworthy.
[780]
We genuinely enjoy
behaving in a trustworthy manner.
[784]
We don't want to breach others' trust;
[785]
we want to reciprocate,
to do right by others.
[789]
The strong preferences
to be trusted and be trustworthy
[794]
are deeply ingrained in us.
[797]
Taken together, besides being
a difficult business sometimes,
[801]
and besides being very dynamic,
trust is really indispensable.
[805]
We need trust to establish, to maintain
and to repair relationships.
[810]
Trust empowers us and we can
empower others by trusting them.
[816]
This brings me back
to my initial example of my parents,
[821]
and them letting me play outside
and out of their sight.
[825]
Maybe inspired by the vampire bats,
they are dressed like vampires here,
[829]
and that is quite a while ago.
[832]
I think they allowed
for a lot of good things to happen
[834]
by trusting me to play out of their sight.
[838]
Meeting new kids, I could learn
that not everybody is as trustworthy
[842]
or untrustworthy as they look,
[843]
I could learn that maintaining
relationships takes a lot of forgiving
[847]
and being forgiven.
[849]
By trusting me I think they taught me
to trust others and trust myself.
[854]
That is a pretty great gift that I hope
I can pass on to my children one day.
[859]
Thank you.
[861]
(Applause)
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage