The Mysteries of Trust

This chapter discusses how people can trust “too much” or “too little” at the same time relative to a rational pattern of decisions suggested by neoclassical economics. People trust too little because they severely underestimate the odds that their trust will be reciprocated. Educating people about the true rate of reciprocation causes them to trust more, to their benefit. However, people also trust too much in that they frequently choose to make themselves vulnerable to others even though they expect a negative return on that trust. It appears that although trust at the behavioral level is informed by trust at the cognitive level, it is hardly identical to it. People not only trust others for the prospect of reward, but also because they are following injunctive norms that they are not necessarily aware of.