Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome to the second of our two part series
Speaker 1: focused on the twenty twenty five World Happiness Report. In
Speaker 1: the last episode, we talked about the decline of shared meals,
Speaker 1: but in this episode we'll turn to a chapter that
Speaker 1: focuses on a different decline. In it, the French economists
Speaker 1: jan Algin Current Blank and Claudia Senic look at the
Speaker 1: changes in social trust, particularly the decreases in trust that
Speaker 1: so many of us have observed post pandemic. The economists
Speaker 1: find that there's been a huge reduction in social trust globally,
Speaker 1: and they argue that these changes in trust have led
Speaker 1: not just to a big hit on our collective happiness,
Speaker 1: but also to increases in what they call anti system thinking,
Speaker 1: with people rejecting traditional political parties and turning to populism.
Speaker 1: I wanted to understand how to make sense of these
Speaker 1: findings and the implications they're having for well being worldwide.
Speaker 1: So to help me out, I decided to turn to
Speaker 1: one of my feet for experts on the science of trust.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, my name is Rachel Batsman. I've been studying
Speaker 2: trust well for over fifteen years now. The latest book
Speaker 2: is called How to Trust and Be Trusted? Intentionally a
Speaker 2: two way title, because that's how trust works. We trust
Speaker 2: other people and then we want others to trust us
Speaker 2: as well. And you can get it on audible or
Speaker 2: Spotify or pushkin FM. People tell me that it's really
Speaker 2: changed the way they trust others and others trust them,
Speaker 2: and that was the reason for making it.
Speaker 1: And so as a trust expert, I'm curious your reaction
Speaker 1: to the fact that there's an entire chapter of the
Speaker 1: World Happiness Report devoted to trust. I mean, is that
Speaker 1: something you think is long over too? Is that something
Speaker 1: you were surprised by.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised it's taken so long to make that connection,
Speaker 2: if I'm honest, because I mean, I've always struggled with
Speaker 2: the word happiness, but satisfaction and joy is very much
Speaker 2: tied to social trust. So not just the people we
Speaker 2: have in our lives, but how much we can trust
Speaker 2: ourselves to take risks and explore new things, how much
Speaker 2: we can take risks and new relationships, how much confidence
Speaker 2: we can place in systems and society. So yeah, there's
Speaker 2: a very strong correlation there. So it's it's not a surprise,
Speaker 2: but surprise it took so long.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you read the report. Was there anything
Speaker 1: particular that you've found especially straightly, I.
Speaker 2: Found it very alarming. Looking at the it's not even
Speaker 2: a decline, It like falls off the cliff in interpersonal trust.
Speaker 2: So that's the trust in families, friends, co workers, people
Speaker 2: close to us, the Marcus twenty twenty. So you think, hmm,
Speaker 2: that's the pandemic, but there's no recovery from it. I
Speaker 2: could understand if it was social trust, like trust and
Speaker 2: strangers and other people, but the fact that there's no
Speaker 2: repair in that close circle. And for me, this ties
Speaker 2: into what I think is a huge societal problem that's
Speaker 2: not getting enough attention. And it's not just loneliness. It's
Speaker 2: that people are spending more time alone and at home
Speaker 2: than ever before. Yes, a worry about loneliness as an epidemic,
Speaker 2: but I feel the rise of the anti social society.
Speaker 2: Our ability to be with other people, even people close
Speaker 2: to us, and want to go out and connect with people.
Speaker 2: That was what I found the most alarming in the report.
Speaker 1: Let's just start by defining trust. You've had a kind
Speaker 1: of curious definition of it, one that I haven't seen.
Speaker 1: This idea of this confident relationship with the unknown. What
Speaker 1: do you mean there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so a confident relationship with the unknown describes
Speaker 2: the need or the existence for trust. So if you
Speaker 2: know the outcome of something, or if you know how
Speaker 2: something's going to turn out, or there's very little risk
Speaker 2: in a situation, you don't actually need a lot of trust.
Speaker 2: It's in those situations where there is a really high
Speaker 2: unknown or there is a lot of uncertainty where you
Speaker 2: need the most trust. And that's why there's such a
Speaker 2: strong tie between trust and uncertainty, which is the flip
Speaker 2: of how many people think about trust. So I ask
Speaker 2: many people to define trust, and the answers you get
Speaker 2: back are typically around stability and expectations, things like reliability,
Speaker 2: which I find really interesting that we're so wired on
Speaker 2: that sort of solid side of the spectrum and that's
Speaker 2: what we attached trust to, versus trust is needed in
Speaker 2: those unknown situations.
Speaker 1: It's also needed across all kinds of different contexts, and
Speaker 1: I think this is something you've so nicely pointed out
Speaker 1: in your work. Give me an example of the different
Speaker 1: domains in which we see trust and where trust seems
Speaker 1: to matter.
Speaker 2: One of the things that really frustrates me is when
Speaker 2: you hear these very generalized ways of talking about trust. Oh,
Speaker 2: trust is in a state of total decline. That's the
Speaker 2: media headline, and it's really not helpful. It's not helpful
Speaker 2: for our own states, it's not helpful for society or
Speaker 2: any system. Because I think of trust in different circles.
Speaker 2: So I'll give you a couple because they might ring true.
Speaker 2: The first is sort of more academic. You can think
Speaker 2: of institutional trust, So that's trust you place in institutions,
Speaker 2: the legal system, healthcare, education, government, whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: That's trust. An institutions, that's trust, and an entity. Then
Speaker 2: you have what we call interpersonal trust. This is the
Speaker 2: trust that really impacts us day in day out. It's
Speaker 2: our family, it's our friends, it's our close circle, our coworkers,
Speaker 2: and those bonds are really really important. They're the ones
Speaker 2: I'm actually most worried about. And then more broadly, we
Speaker 2: have social trust, and that is the trust that we
Speaker 2: can place in strangers, that people we don't know, our
Speaker 2: belief in things like integrity and moral good. So they're
Speaker 2: the sort of three academic ways of framing trust. Another
Speaker 2: way of framing trust is to think of trust in
Speaker 2: yourself trust in others. And then the trust they placed
Speaker 2: in you. So that's more of like concentric circle approach,
Speaker 2: and trust issues can arise in any three of those circles.
Speaker 2: So some people find it very difficult to trust themselves,
Speaker 2: but can trust others easily. Others find that people naturally
Speaker 2: trust them for some reason, but they don't necessarily trust
Speaker 2: other people. So I find those circles really interesting to
Speaker 2: think about.
Speaker 1: They seem to be so important for happiness, but also
Speaker 1: really dynamic, right, you know, if you don't trust yourself,
Speaker 1: then what's that going to lead other people to think
Speaker 1: of you? And things like that? I mean, it must
Speaker 1: be really complicated to kind of get at some of
Speaker 1: these dynamics.
Speaker 2: And constantly evolving. So trust is not like this fixed asset.
Speaker 2: I don't like it when people talk about banking trust,
Speaker 2: you know, like it's a reservoir. They change with age,
Speaker 2: they change with experience, they change with environment, and most importantly,
Speaker 2: they change with context. Trust is so so contextual, and
Speaker 2: this is the part that we often miss.
Speaker 1: And so it seems like trust in all these different
Speaker 1: dimensions is super important for our happiness. But it seems
Speaker 1: like there's also two problems that we could have with trust, right,
Speaker 1: One is the idea of being too trusting and then
Speaker 1: you know, you kind of get let down by the
Speaker 1: people around you, maybe even by yourself.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The second is this idea of being not trusting enough, right,
Speaker 1: kind of not realizing that other people actually have your
Speaker 1: back end. The uncertainty is not as scary as you think.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to go through each of these
Speaker 1: in turn, maybe starting with this idea of being too trusting,
Speaker 1: and partly because my understanding is that this is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons you get interested in trust in the
Speaker 1: first place. Share with me this story of what happened
Speaker 1: in your childhood where folks in your world were maybe
Speaker 1: too trusting. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think people often think of it as a problem,
Speaker 2: but it is. And the interesting thing there is actually
Speaker 2: a high correlation between people who are very trusting and
Speaker 2: that consider themselves emotionally intelligent and intuitive. And the reason
Speaker 2: why is you are told that you are very good
Speaker 2: at reading people, that you can pick up on signals.
Speaker 2: So if you're someone that says, all, I have very
Speaker 2: strong intuition about people, and that's something I felt from
Speaker 2: a really young age. And the story of telling the book,
Speaker 2: I guess everyone has an origin story, and mine is
Speaker 2: around a nanny that turned out to be a drug
Speaker 2: dealer that used our famili's car, a Volvo nonetheless a
Speaker 2: get away car, and an armed robbery.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah, it's like a very like true
Speaker 1: crime trust origin story.
Speaker 2: The thing that's crazy about the story is that she
Speaker 2: lived with us for a year. It wasn't like she
Speaker 2: moved in and she did this in eight weeks. And
Speaker 2: she was this incredible nanny. Like my memories of her
Speaker 2: were that she played with us, she was very attentive,
Speaker 2: she was a really good cook, she was very peaceful.
Speaker 2: But she had a complete other life that my parents
Speaker 2: discovered over time.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure that looking back, there must have been
Speaker 1: some red flags about this nanny that you maybe sort
Speaker 1: of questioned the extent to which she would have trusted her.
Speaker 1: As you look back, what are some red flags in
Speaker 1: this situation that you've kind of generalized to other situations
Speaker 1: which we might wonder whether we're trusting somebody to us.
Speaker 2: I think there's the red flags as a child, But
Speaker 2: now my parents have told the story, they realized that
Speaker 2: when they hired her, they're both entrepreneurs and they were
Speaker 2: in a very intense time of building their companies and
Speaker 2: traveling a lot, So making trust decisions when you're under
Speaker 2: pressure is high stakes. Trust decisions like who to leave
Speaker 2: your children with often leads to bad decision making because
Speaker 2: you want to believe that person. So that's the first lesson, and.
Speaker 1: That one I have to say is like so important, right,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so many situa in which just
Speaker 1: like the convenience of being able to trust somebody, just
Speaker 1: like you're like, I can't even question this right now
Speaker 1: because I just like have to make this work, So
Speaker 1: I'm just going to assume everything's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: You could totally see how that plays out in so
Speaker 1: many different domains.
Speaker 2: Most hires at work right, like, it's just left too late,
Speaker 2: and convenience no pun intended, often trumps trust, so will
Speaker 2: often give our trust away if it is convenient. That
Speaker 2: is a real life lesson. The second thing is I
Speaker 2: think the way when I asked them, like, because there
Speaker 2: was no email, there was no video calling, there was
Speaker 2: no social networks at the time, you know, why did
Speaker 2: you believe this person? And they said it was things
Speaker 2: like she had a Scottish accent, and she said that
Speaker 2: she even came to work wearing a Salvation Army uniform
Speaker 2: because she said she really liked helping people and that
Speaker 2: she played the piano and the tambourine. So it's all
Speaker 2: these stereotypes of who is trustworthy. Accents are a really
Speaker 2: big influence on that. So that's been a life lesson
Speaker 2: in when I'm meeting someone, what signals am I tuning into?
Speaker 2: And so many signals really play to our biases, so
Speaker 2: we will look for people that are familiar or fit
Speaker 2: that kind of stereotype. So that's number two. Number three
Speaker 2: is listened to your children because I knew they were
Speaker 2: being lied to and I notice things going missing around
Speaker 2: the house. I noticed on Wednesdays we'd go to this
Speaker 2: strange flat and there was this strange man, and there
Speaker 2: was something that just didn't add up. And I would
Speaker 2: say to Mom, these people come round and they talk
Speaker 2: about strange things, and I would get told off not
Speaker 2: to make things up. So trust children because they are
Speaker 2: really observant and they often don't have an agenda in
Speaker 2: the same way that adults do. So I'd listened to
Speaker 2: that feedback more.
Speaker 1: It also seems like you just need to perspective, take
Speaker 1: a little bit, like get a really outside perspective, a
Speaker 1: bit of a distance perspective. Sometimes you can be that
Speaker 1: can be your child. But I bet sometimes that can
Speaker 1: just be like another person who might not be in
Speaker 1: the tight situation you are might not have noticed like
Speaker 1: the same things that you're noticing about how cool this
Speaker 1: person is in this salvation army you know, you know,
Speaker 1: uniform they're wearing and so on. It seems like we
Speaker 1: often get into trouble when we trust our gut and
Speaker 1: don't take outside input when it comes to trust. Does
Speaker 1: the research bear that out totally?
Speaker 2: I mean, they say trust has two enemies, bad character
Speaker 2: and poor information, And it's when we either don't slow
Speaker 2: down to get enough information or as you say, Laurie,
Speaker 2: like we don't get a different perspective. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: one of mom's friends, like when she said that she
Speaker 2: just found all this money under a tree in a park,
Speaker 2: like the money tree, that someone would have said, I
Speaker 2: think those exist.
Speaker 1: That sounds sketchy, It sounds a little sketchy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let's walk through the things that really maybe are
Speaker 1: good indicators of trust, like these sort of so called
Speaker 1: traits of trustworthiness. As you talk about them, can you
Speaker 1: break these down for us.
Speaker 2: Yes, so, and I'm gonna say I think some of
Speaker 2: them need updating. So this is based on social science
Speaker 2: that now has been tracking traits for forty years, and
Speaker 2: these traits are changing, which I think is really interesting.
Speaker 2: The capability side, so you have imagined your parts. You
Speaker 2: have capability, which is really about what you do, and
Speaker 2: then you have character, which is why you do things,
Speaker 2: but really importantly how you do things. So how would
Speaker 2: you describe, Laurie what you do.
Speaker 1: I would say that I'm a podcaster. I'm a teacher,
Speaker 1: you know, I try to be really there for my students.
Speaker 1: I try to use evidence in a really capable way,
Speaker 1: Like I have lots of things that make me capable,
Speaker 1: but also maybe I'm like a warm person, right, I
Speaker 1: want to take care of my students and help my
Speaker 1: listeners and so on.
Speaker 2: So they you're talking about capability and character. So the capability,
Speaker 2: if you imagine, is your competence. So you have the skills,
Speaker 2: you have the expertise, you have the knowledge, you have
Speaker 2: the resources, you have YEO, as an institution, you have
Speaker 2: all these things that allow you to do what you
Speaker 2: say you're going to do. So you're really credible on
Speaker 2: those things, but maybe there's some other things. I don't know.
Speaker 2: What's something you completely can't do?
Speaker 1: Terrible have I god so many things. Driving I can't
Speaker 1: drive by that. Biking, biking, I'm really bad by I
Speaker 1: don't know how to bike. Most physical things are very clumsy,
Speaker 1: fall lot, skiing not great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that actually makes you more trustworthy because you can
Speaker 2: be honest about things that you do and then you're
Speaker 2: really comfortable with saying don't ever get in a car
Speaker 2: with me or don't ride with me. So that's your confidence.
Speaker 2: What you're talking about with you with your students, wanting
Speaker 2: to be there for them consistently. I'd imagine that you're
Speaker 2: this person that likes them to know that they can
Speaker 2: depend on you. That's the reliability trait, and that is
Speaker 2: really really important when it comes to trust. So you
Speaker 2: know those like really inconsistent people that are high energy
Speaker 2: and they show up sometimes and then they completely disappear.
Speaker 2: There's no follow through. So that's it's on the capability side.
Speaker 2: And then on the character side, we have empathy, which
Speaker 2: you spoke about. I prefer the word compassion. You know,
Speaker 2: empathy doesn't really talk about the action side, the follow through.
Speaker 2: And then The last trait, which I think is the
Speaker 2: most important trait, is integrity. And that's all about your
Speaker 2: interest being aligned with the best interests of other people.
Speaker 2: So you the professor, your interests are aligned with the
Speaker 2: interest the students, You the host. The audience feels that
Speaker 2: this is self serving, that you are there to be
Speaker 2: generous and to care about them and their learning. So
Speaker 2: that's what we talk about when we talk about trustworthiness.
Speaker 1: And I imagine that in these different domains of trust
Speaker 1: the importance of say, capability, this kind of combination of
Speaker 1: competence and reliability versus character, this combination of compassionate integrity
Speaker 1: that might go up and down depending on what you need,
Speaker 1: right Like, I might not need a surgeon filled with
Speaker 1: a lot of character. I just really want him to
Speaker 1: be very competent and capable. But a best friend, I right, really,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't necessarily care that my best friend
Speaker 1: does it her job, but I really want her to
Speaker 1: be really empathic when it comes to, you know, helping
Speaker 1: me with my problems and so on.
Speaker 2: It's a really important comes back to context, and it's
Speaker 2: such an important point because I don't know if you've heard.
Speaker 2: Actually my dad said it the other day he's having
Speaker 2: some dot to his hip and he's I really don't
Speaker 2: feel like the surgeon cares. I was like, yeah, but
Speaker 2: he's a great surgeon, right, Like he's going to fix
Speaker 2: the hit. And I think that has become an expectation
Speaker 2: on sort of a feeling led society, is that sometimes
Speaker 2: we can place too much emphasis on compassion and empathy
Speaker 2: and that person can seem incredibly kind but not capable.
Speaker 2: So this is why I think this alchemy of traits
Speaker 2: and thinking about the particular situation is it's almost like
Speaker 2: a compass for making really good decisions about people.
Speaker 1: And so if you're a person who's maybe meeting a
Speaker 1: new surgeon for the first time, or a new business
Speaker 1: partner or a new love interest, and you really want
Speaker 1: to kind of make sure you're trusting appropriately, what are
Speaker 1: some strategies you'd use to do that well.
Speaker 2: I think the business situation is probably the easiest, and
Speaker 2: it's also where most people go wrong, because most people
Speaker 2: start with the competence piece. If you think about most
Speaker 2: job interviews or promotional interviews like so tell me what
Speaker 2: you've done, tell me about your experience, Like they are
Speaker 2: the easiest things to get from a resume or a
Speaker 2: reference to check, and the number of interviews that don't
Speaker 2: get to the why and the how. The how is
Speaker 2: really interesting, like how people approach things, how they break
Speaker 2: down problems, how they are in difficult conversations. So I
Speaker 2: would like focus questions around that. The second thing that
Speaker 2: I would do is really try to understand someone's interests, intentions,
Speaker 2: and motives, not like why do you want the job?
Speaker 2: But where are they really coming from? And again asking
Speaker 2: yourself this question of does that align with the role,
Speaker 2: does that align with the organization, Because it's when you
Speaker 2: have that misalignment in a professional or a personal context
Speaker 2: that trust issues can arise. So you can even think
Speaker 2: of a bit uncomfortable saying this, but like in dating situations,
Speaker 2: like if someone really doesn't want children and the other
Speaker 2: person wants children, right, there's a misalignment there. If someone
Speaker 2: doesn't want a long term relationship, if someone doesn't want
Speaker 2: a monogamous relationship, someone doesn't want to live with you,
Speaker 2: it's that misalignment that really is the problem. Now, you're
Speaker 2: not going to get there on the first date, you'll
Speaker 2: probably scarce someone away, but over time, if you feel
Speaker 2: like there's trust issues emerging, there's probably some unsaid conversation
Speaker 2: around I want this one thing and you want this
Speaker 2: other thing, and we're both too scared to say it.
Speaker 1: And then how do we overcome the kind of biases
Speaker 1: that we talked about earlier. Is there anything we can
Speaker 1: do to kind of get that perspective maybe not fall
Speaker 1: for a familiarity and some of the other biases we
Speaker 1: talked about.
Speaker 2: It's so hard. I mean, if someone can come up
Speaker 2: with the solution around that, then tell me. But I
Speaker 2: think it. I mean, it's really obvious advice. It's becoming
Speaker 2: aware of what those biases are for you. What does
Speaker 2: familiarity look like? What are the signals? And that's different
Speaker 2: for different people. So some people are very influenced by
Speaker 2: looks and appearance. Other people are really influenced by cultural
Speaker 2: background and accents. Other people are really influenced by education.
Speaker 2: Away of sort of tuning into this is when you
Speaker 2: meet people for the first time, where do you sort
Speaker 2: of focus. Do you notice what someone's wearing, do you
Speaker 2: notice what they're saying? Where does the conversation orientate itself
Speaker 2: as well? Like, these are really powerful signals as to
Speaker 2: what is important to you. That maybe where your biases
Speaker 2: are rooted.
Speaker 1: You've also suggested doing something that we talk about a
Speaker 1: lot on the Happiness Lab, which is like, take a pause,
Speaker 1: take a breath. How can take what you've called the
Speaker 1: trust pause be helpful here?
Speaker 2: So a trust pause it's something I invented for myself.
Speaker 1: All researchers research, right.
Speaker 2: I tend to move quickly, do things quickly, think quickly,
Speaker 2: speak quickly, and I just realized there were certain situations
Speaker 2: where slowing down and really asking myself, you know, was
Speaker 2: this person, this piece of information, this situation, this partnership,
Speaker 2: did they actually deserve my trust? And it's really placing
Speaker 2: value on your trust that you have trust to give
Speaker 2: and you don't have to give it to everyone. I
Speaker 2: found that to be quite empowering because in certain situations
Speaker 2: you go, you know what, I'm gonna just hold back
Speaker 2: a little bit. Or it's not like a self protection mechanism.
Speaker 2: It's just saying I don't think I want to give
Speaker 2: you my trust at this particular moment. And you can
Speaker 2: think about that even in the context of online information, right,
Speaker 2: like when you just share something without reading it that
Speaker 2: would benefit from a trust pause.
Speaker 1: So far, we've talked about cases where we trust a
Speaker 1: little bit too much or a little bit too early.
Speaker 1: But when we get back from the break, we're going
Speaker 1: to discuss the other problem when it comes to trusted happiness,
Speaker 1: trusting too little. The happiness lab will be right back.
Speaker 1: Rachel Batsman, author of How To Trust and Be Trusted,
Speaker 1: is an expert on the science of trust. But I
Speaker 1: was curious how she thinks about the opposite, what is distrust.
Speaker 2: Oh, So the first thing I'd say is there's a
Speaker 2: difference between low trust and distrust, and that's really important
Speaker 2: to understand. So low trust can just be you don't
Speaker 2: have enough information, like you're new to a situation or
Speaker 2: a relationship. It's not necessarily a bad thing. And also
Speaker 2: this is why I hate a lot of poles and surveys.
Speaker 2: If you try to live your whole life in a
Speaker 2: high trust state, it'll be pretty exhausting, right, Like, there's
Speaker 2: certain things that just don't require a high degree of trust.
Speaker 2: So that's the first thing I would say. Distrust it's
Speaker 2: very difficult to define. I have not yet come up
Speaker 2: or seen a definition that I really like. But the
Speaker 2: way I think of distrust is more through the lens
Speaker 2: of behaviors. So I find it helpful to think of
Speaker 2: these three d's. So when someone is distrusting, you tend
Speaker 2: to see this spectrum play out where you see a
Speaker 2: defensiveness set in. And that defensiveness is because you have
Speaker 2: made yourself vulnerable or you've placed something of value and
Speaker 2: in some ways you feel that it's being exploited or
Speaker 2: it's not being taken care of, and so the first
Speaker 2: instinct is to be quite defensive about that. Now, the
Speaker 2: thing about that stage of distrust is you can still
Speaker 2: fix the situation because the person cares. The second phase
Speaker 2: is disengagement. Disengagement is when you start to pour back.
Speaker 2: So you might have experienced this at work where you're like,
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure I trust this personalised situation or
Speaker 2: this boss, so I'm just going to pull back. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I'm going to really show up or really care.
Speaker 2: And then the last phase, which is incredibly dangerous and
Speaker 2: I think it's how we talk about distrust in society today,
Speaker 2: is disenchantment. And disenchantment means you have turned against that person,
Speaker 2: that organization, that system, and you're in a downward spiral
Speaker 2: because your only motive is to bring that thing down.
Speaker 2: You have become anti you are pushing against. And the
Speaker 2: reason why this is so dangerous is because it can
Speaker 2: become all consuming for yourself, for others, and very very toxic.
Speaker 2: So you see this in sports scenes where someone turns
Speaker 2: against the coach. You see it in workplaces where they
Speaker 2: want everyone to leave. We see it wider in society,
Speaker 2: where you want to turn against a party. That's how
Speaker 2: I tend to think of distrust is moving through these
Speaker 2: three phases.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned sort of society, especially politics. It seems
Speaker 1: like this idea of disenchantment is running rampant. At least
Speaker 1: that's what we hear a lot from the news. But
Speaker 1: I know this is an idea that you've pushed back
Speaker 1: against a little bit that, like the kind of the
Speaker 1: freefall of trust might not be as bad as we think.
Speaker 1: Explain why that's the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I find it really difficult to listen
Speaker 2: to news for so many reasons. But it's often because
Speaker 2: everything is described in free fall, including trust. So you'll
Speaker 2: see these graphs where it's just like this downward line
Speaker 2: and from about twenty twenty, it's like falling off a
Speaker 2: clip that's across the spectrum. Actually, the institutional the social
Speaker 2: and the interpersonal trust. To me, that is problematic because
Speaker 2: the way I think of trust is more like energy
Speaker 2: that it's not getting destroyed, it's changing form. And so
Speaker 2: what might look like low trust or distrust to you
Speaker 2: is just someone trusting differently. And once you see this,
Speaker 2: it explains so many things, and it's stopped so much judgment.
Speaker 2: So it doesn't even have to be between political parties.
Speaker 2: You see it within generations where people will say, well
Speaker 2: that gen Z or jen Alfa they just don't trust anymore.
Speaker 2: That is not true. Their trust is sideways, like they
Speaker 2: trust their peers and friends and influencers because that's where
Speaker 2: they get their information. They don't trust upwards. So thinking
Speaker 2: of flows of trust versus amounts of trust can be
Speaker 2: really helpful in understanding dynamics in relationships and then bigger
Speaker 2: paradise shifts happening.
Speaker 1: It seems like one of those bigger paradigm shifts is
Speaker 1: kind of the trust that we have that in some sense,
Speaker 1: for lack of better word, is kind of distributed, right,
Speaker 1: You mentioned kind of gen Z and gen Alpha trusting,
Speaker 1: influencers trusting what they read on social media. Is that
Speaker 1: a cultural shift that you're seeing in this trust research too.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's huge. So what we see is like if
Speaker 2: you imagine like an evolution of trust. We had institutional trusts,
Speaker 2: so everything was very top down and hierarchical and centralized
Speaker 2: and defined by fixed boundaries. So we used to get
Speaker 2: a newspaper, we turn on the TV that's institutional trust,
Speaker 2: and technology inherently blew that up and distributed it through
Speaker 2: networks and marketplaces and platforms and now through artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2: So the easiest way to understand this is imagine a
Speaker 2: trust that for decades flowed upwards and now it's distributed sideways.
Speaker 2: And this has so much influence over so many things
Speaker 2: because who we believe is trustworthy, who influences our opinions
Speaker 2: and beliefs, what we decide to act on in the
Speaker 2: context of health, politics, education, life decisions, wellness. This is
Speaker 2: all moving sideways, and sometimes the people sharing that information
Speaker 2: are not the most trustworthy. I mean, just if it
Speaker 2: actually you see this in the happiness face that you know,
Speaker 2: it really bothers me. Like when I see influencers online,
Speaker 2: they're usually alone, Like do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like they wake up alone, they meditate, their their coffee,
Speaker 2: they stretch they run alone, right, they work alone, just
Speaker 2: really bothers me that that's the image of happiness.
Speaker 1: And I think we're falling prey to a lot of
Speaker 1: the biases that you talked about earlier about trusting too much, right,
Speaker 1: Like many of these influencers have, you know, this beautiful
Speaker 1: home that they go into, and they tend to be
Speaker 1: really beautiful, right, Like we're falling for these tropes of
Speaker 1: like familiarity and maybe some of the things we like
Speaker 1: and a halo effect, that's a fact where we kind
Speaker 1: of like people who have other good things happening to them.
Speaker 1: Like it is true that like we're putting putting our trust,
Speaker 1: this distributed trust winds up maybe following pray to as
Speaker 1: many of those same biases as you just talked about
Speaker 1: in the interpersonal trust domain earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's in sound bites and fragments, some very
Speaker 2: carefully curated images and I know all this stuff. And
Speaker 2: I started running last year and I fell down this
Speaker 2: rabbit hole so hard, and then I realized no one
Speaker 2: looks like that when they run, right, Because I'd be like,
Speaker 2: why am I so much pain and sweaty and disgusting?
Speaker 2: And they're all like you know, here's weighing and stuff,
Speaker 2: and because they're making money off me, and you've just
Speaker 2: made me think of something I hadn't thought of. But
Speaker 2: if you think about the trust you play in influencers,
Speaker 2: like just a scrolling behavior, it's a one way thing, right,
Speaker 2: it doesn't flow back to you, And so much of
Speaker 2: healthy trust is reciprocation. So I do something for you,
Speaker 2: which then creates the space for you to do something
Speaker 2: for me. And those loops are what form trust, These
Speaker 2: one way forms of trust. Let's not call them shallow trust,
Speaker 2: but these one way form so trust. They're breaking those loops,
Speaker 2: those possibilities for reciprocation, and that's damaging the social glue,
Speaker 2: which i'd imagine is impacting our happiness and satisfaction. I'd
Speaker 2: be interested if the research correlates to that.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the over trust we put in
Speaker 1: these distributed networks, you know, to these influencers and things
Speaker 1: like that. And that's, as you mentioned, happening alongside a
Speaker 1: real kind of emergence of distrust for institutions, whether that's
Speaker 1: you know, governments or academic institutions like the one I'm
Speaker 1: at and so on. And this was the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that the World Happiness Report was really looking at. Right,
Speaker 1: The chapter of the World Happiness Report that's on trust
Speaker 1: is trying to look at this puzzle about why there's
Speaker 1: been so many kind of voting behaviors that have shifted
Speaker 1: kind of more anti institutional right for candidates that maybe
Speaker 1: want smaller government or kind of want to do away
Speaker 1: with government, you know, kind of candidates that really represent
Speaker 1: these sort of views that are kind of anti establishment.
Speaker 1: Walk me through some of the things that this chapter
Speaker 1: found and how trust was really important for some of
Speaker 1: these changes in voting behavior.
Speaker 2: The report is really interesting. I don't agree with all
Speaker 2: of the framing. Sort of at the highest level. It's
Speaker 2: basically saying the far left have high trust and higher
Speaker 2: life satisfaction and the far right have low trust and
Speaker 2: lower life satisfaction. That's like top level, which is a
Speaker 2: problematic framing for me. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: is they're saying that when you're in a low trust date,
Speaker 2: you tend to be anti You invest your energy in
Speaker 2: pushing it against things, the status guo, you want to
Speaker 2: break down the system, and when you are high trust,
Speaker 2: you are four so you're more progressive. Where the report
Speaker 2: gets really interesting is when you dig further down. So
Speaker 2: what I found interesting is that if you stick with
Speaker 2: this far left, in this far right dichotomy, the far
Speaker 2: right had higher distrust in strangers, but much higher trust
Speaker 2: in their private circles, close knit family, friends, work, colleagues,
Speaker 2: really high bonds of social trust. And then on the
Speaker 2: left hand side there are actually signs of lower interpersonal trust,
Speaker 2: higher signs of learniness and disengagement. And that I think
Speaker 2: is really interesting. Essentially, what the report is saying is
Speaker 2: that the social fabric is damaged for both.
Speaker 1: Sides, yeah, and damaged and damaged in different ways. That
Speaker 1: might lead to the fact that it's very hard to
Speaker 1: see across the aisle right because people are thinking about
Speaker 1: trust in different ways across different sides of the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: which is maybe what's leading to a disconnect in what
Speaker 1: people want governments to be doing over time exactly.
Speaker 2: And so this idea of high trust and low trust,
Speaker 2: that's the problem because both sads hype high trust, but
Speaker 2: in different things. It's not that they lack trust, they
Speaker 2: just trust differently. And this is what we see is
Speaker 2: that when you take trust away from one area of
Speaker 2: our lives, it creates a vacuum, and that vacuum has
Speaker 2: to be filled with something, and that could be different beliefs,
Speaker 2: it could be conspiracy theories, but you have to feel
Speaker 2: that for But I think holding on to this idea
Speaker 2: that the social fabric is damaged and that the root
Speaker 2: causes of that that are driving trust issues and problems
Speaker 2: with happiness are insecurity and loneliness on both sides. It's
Speaker 2: those two things that are merging together to really cause
Speaker 2: this sort of reconfiguration over trust.
Speaker 1: So is there any hope that our tattered social fabric
Speaker 1: can be repaired? And if so, how can we go
Speaker 1: about creating a future where we trust each other and
Speaker 1: our institutions. We'll look at that when the Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: returns in a moment. In her audiobook How to Trust
Speaker 1: and Be Trusted, Rachel Batsman has lots of great suggestions
Speaker 1: for increasing trust in our lives. One interesting concept is
Speaker 1: what she calls a trust leap.
Speaker 2: So, a trust leap is whenever you take a risk
Speaker 2: to do something new or to do something differently. Now,
Speaker 2: when you talk about trust lease, people often think about
Speaker 2: big things in a self driving car or buying bitcoin
Speaker 2: that involves like a new technology and that is a
Speaker 2: trust leap, that is how we change behavior. But trust
Speaker 2: sleeps can also be relatively small in our lives. So
Speaker 2: it can be choosing to put your hand up at
Speaker 2: work to do something completely differently. It can be choosing
Speaker 2: to speak up in a meeting. And one of the
Speaker 2: problems I've actually seen around trust leaps is that first
Speaker 2: of all, people focus on the outcome, so they focus
Speaker 2: on where they want the leap to go, and they
Speaker 2: imagine these leaps being really really big versus small, consistent
Speaker 2: ways of doing something new or doing something differently and
Speaker 2: seeing where that takes us. So that is the concept
Speaker 2: of trust leaps.
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing I know the answer to this, but
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that prevent people from
Speaker 1: making these trust leaves. It seems like part of it
Speaker 1: maybe is a bias to assume the trust leap is
Speaker 1: going to go badly in some forum.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to say badly, because we often don't even
Speaker 2: get that far. Because if you imagine a trust leap
Speaker 2: involved going from the known and the safe and the familiar,
Speaker 2: and that's, as you know, Laurie, where we all love
Speaker 2: to be, like, that's where we're wired to be, and
Speaker 2: it involves like going to the unknown, because that's when
Speaker 2: we discover new things. Most of us, it's so hard
Speaker 2: to move from that place that is safe and familiar
Speaker 2: that we never even really take the first leap. So
Speaker 2: it's not that we are assessing risk. We're not thinking
Speaker 2: about all these bad things could happen. It's often just
Speaker 2: the getting started and breaking the leap down that is
Speaker 2: the problem.
Speaker 1: I love this idea because it's really about like recognizing
Speaker 1: that getting out of your comfort zone, which we so
Speaker 1: many of us struggle with, is in some ways a
Speaker 1: trust leap, right. It's like embracing that unknown and kind
Speaker 1: of trusting yourself that it's going to be fine no
Speaker 1: matter how it turns out, even if it doesn't go
Speaker 1: perfectly as planned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think you know you said you don't
Speaker 2: like being on a bike. I hate being on a bike.
Speaker 2: It fills me with dread. I don't like skiing on
Speaker 2: the edges of things because I don't like ledges right.
Speaker 2: So often where we find it hard to take trust
Speaker 2: leaps is associated with risks. So there are some risks,
Speaker 2: like physical risks that are really hard for me to take,
Speaker 2: like when I swim in the ocean, my husband's Australian
Speaker 2: and we go to Australia. I'm so afraid of the sharks.
Speaker 2: But no sharks in a common three centimeters of order, right.
Speaker 2: But those trust leaps are really really hard, but creative
Speaker 2: trust leaps are really easy for me to take. It's
Speaker 2: a very different type of risk, and so understanding that
Speaker 2: again can be and it's something I talk about in
Speaker 2: the book because I really believe it can help you
Speaker 2: understand where you're stuck and where you like things to
Speaker 2: be comfortable and where you really find it hard to
Speaker 2: stretch yourself. Is usually to do with different types of risk,
Speaker 2: financial risk, emotional risk, physical risk, creative risk. They all
Speaker 2: have a very different makeup in our lives.
Speaker 1: You've also argued that we'd be helped in terms of
Speaker 1: finding more trust by trying to sort out our trust barriers.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by trust barriers and what are
Speaker 1: some ways that we can understand them?
Speaker 2: So the trust is, as you can tell, I like
Speaker 2: my metaphors, it is the thing that gets in the way,
Speaker 2: you know, like the number of people who say I
Speaker 2: can't move like they've never lived in a different country,
Speaker 2: or they can't move jobs, or in some ways they
Speaker 2: can't get off of a relationship, they can't take up
Speaker 2: a new hobby. They are describing well being stuck. That
Speaker 2: they are in some way paralyzed, and that is because
Speaker 2: there is some kind of barrier in the way. Now,
Speaker 2: that trust barrier. It might be a very practical thing
Speaker 2: like money, financial security, but it can also be things
Speaker 2: like companionship just really frightened to do it alone. Not
Speaker 2: to go on about running, but I wouldn't been able
Speaker 2: to run if I didn't find a friend, because I
Speaker 2: wouldn't run around the parks in the dark, and I'd
Speaker 2: be really scared of what was going to happen if
Speaker 2: I got lost. That's a trust barrier, and in companies
Speaker 2: these barriers get bigger. It's actually a really useful framework
Speaker 2: if you're launching a new product or service because often
Speaker 2: what you think is the trust barrier is very different
Speaker 2: from what the cust some that thinks is the trust barrier.
Speaker 2: So understanding what that perception is around risk, whether it's
Speaker 2: real or perceived, can be really helpful for launching a
Speaker 2: new product or service as well.
Speaker 1: And imagine there are lots of trust barriers that come
Speaker 1: up in the domain of politics, which is what the
Speaker 1: World Happiness Report is about what are some examples of
Speaker 1: trust barriers that come up in that domain.
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure where to begin, but a trust barrier,
Speaker 2: actually it's a funny thing, but it can be like
Speaker 2: nothing's going to change. So it can result in apathy,
Speaker 2: like I'm just not going to vote, I'm going to abstain.
Speaker 2: So believing that there is no way things are going
Speaker 2: to change direction or system's going to change. Financial insecurity,
Speaker 2: that is a massive trust barrier. Not believing there's going
Speaker 2: to be any kind of redistribution of wealth or that
Speaker 2: my life is going to get better. Trust barriers can
Speaker 2: be much closer to home. You're probably seeing in the
Speaker 2: research the number of people and it's a real worry
Speaker 2: that they're never going to own a home, they're never
Speaker 2: going to be able to retire, and so it can
Speaker 2: actually paralyze people from even getting started, even though that
Speaker 2: life stage might be forty to fifty years away. So
Speaker 2: these are real trust barriers that are impacting people's happiness
Speaker 2: and immediate decisions.
Speaker 1: And so what are some questions we can ask ourselves
Speaker 1: to overcome these trust barriers. I mean, some of the
Speaker 1: ones you're talking about are structural right, they don't have
Speaker 1: enough money for a home. These things might be harder,
Speaker 1: but some of the trust barriers, like well I can't
Speaker 1: do it by myself, they might be easier to overcome
Speaker 1: if we consult our fears of it. So what are
Speaker 1: some questions we can ask ourselves to overcome these trust barriers.
Speaker 2: It's a good question where did it come from? Was
Speaker 2: it something I developed or was it something that I
Speaker 2: was told as a child. Is a really big one.
Speaker 2: So if you grew up in a family that always
Speaker 2: like be careful, don't go that far, or get down
Speaker 2: from there. A lot of it starts really young, Laurie,
Speaker 2: and that's not surprising because our relationship to risk and
Speaker 2: trust it's really formed around the age of four. The
Speaker 2: second thing I would ask is, again, how much of
Speaker 2: this is real and how much of this is perception?
Speaker 2: So how much of this is rooted in facts and
Speaker 2: data versus my own fits? That would be the second,
Speaker 2: and then the third is not necessarily getting rid of
Speaker 2: the barrier, but lowering the leap. You know, I feel
Speaker 2: so lucky to teach at Oxford, but then I have
Speaker 2: friends who are like, I'd love my child to go there,
Speaker 2: and You're like, that is a very ambitious leap for
Speaker 2: many children, Like, why don't we just lower that leap
Speaker 2: a little bit? And if it ends up like that, great.
Speaker 2: It's not about not being ambitious and wanting achievement. I
Speaker 2: just think so much pressure comes in life because we
Speaker 2: make these leaps way too high.
Speaker 1: And I think that that happens in politics too, right.
Speaker 1: I think both because of the misinformation you talked about, right,
Speaker 1: you know my information accurate? Have I gotten the right facts?
Speaker 1: But also because we make the barriers to entries so high, right.
Speaker 1: I think when we envision maybe talking to somebody from
Speaker 1: across the aisle, we picture really extreme on the other
Speaker 1: side of the aisle, right, you know, because that's you know,
Speaker 1: what we see in our distributed trust networks, that's what
Speaker 1: the influencers attacking us about. Are there ways that we
Speaker 1: can maybe overcome these trust barriers in those domains too?
Speaker 2: I think it's it's a really important point because the
Speaker 2: way it's sort of pictured it often is taking on
Speaker 2: the system or taking on the other side. And I
Speaker 2: would start by just having a conversation that makes you uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: being comfortable with the discomfort of a difficult situation is
Speaker 2: the starting place. So I have a lot of friends
Speaker 2: that have very difficult and different views on the war
Speaker 2: in Gaza. And you know, at my children's school, they're
Speaker 2: banned from talking about wars or politics because I quote,
Speaker 2: it brings up big feelings. And I have a real
Speaker 2: objection to that, because what are we teaching our children
Speaker 2: that they can't deal with that discomfort, that they can't
Speaker 2: have a difficult conversation, that they can't hold that space
Speaker 2: with another human being that maybe has a different belief
Speaker 2: or viewpoint from them. So you know, you can start
Speaker 2: with your own friends and your family and people that
Speaker 2: you know at the end and just they're going to
Speaker 2: hug and tell you that they still love you, right
Speaker 2: and knowing that nothing changes in that relationship. There's so
Speaker 2: much we can learn just from being with that discomfort
Speaker 2: and that heat and learning that everything is okay.
Speaker 1: And then on the other side of that discomfort, if
Speaker 1: you push through, it might be a trusting relationship that
Speaker 1: you're going to value tremendously and it's going to make
Speaker 1: you much happier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like not to go to my children, but
Speaker 2: like this did happen in their school where they had
Speaker 2: quite a difficult conversation around the Holocaust where some children
Speaker 2: you know now don't believe the Holocaust has happened now
Speaker 2: they're nine and ten. That's not coming from them, that's
Speaker 2: come from somewhere. And the fact that the history teacher
Speaker 2: then backed them up and gave this very factor assembly.
Speaker 2: They were like, wow, there's someone who cares right, and
Speaker 2: there's information that we can trust. And he explained where
Speaker 2: he got this information from. Now, regardless of what your
Speaker 2: side you're on, that assembly would have impacted both sets
Speaker 2: of children, the non believers and the children that this
Speaker 2: was really important that this chapter in history was members.
Speaker 2: So I feel like those moments, particularly with children, it's
Speaker 2: really like, I can trust this person, I can trust
Speaker 2: this situation. It's really important to teach.
Speaker 1: So as we think back to the World Happiness Report
Speaker 1: and the importance it's placed on trust, and how trust
Speaker 1: might be going down institutionally, how lack of trust is
Speaker 1: kind of affecting our politics, and so much any last
Speaker 1: advice for how people on both sides can become a
Speaker 1: little bit more trusting.
Speaker 2: I think too much of the conversation is around institutional trust.
Speaker 2: These are systems that ninety nine percent of us cannot fix.
Speaker 2: They are too big, they're too far out of reach, right,
Speaker 2: So I would say, focus on local trust doesn't even
Speaker 2: have to be your family and friends. Focus on things
Speaker 2: going on in your community, in your neighborhood, in your street,
Speaker 2: and really getting involved in something like that. It can
Speaker 2: do so much for your social ties. It can do
Speaker 2: so much for the glue and make you feel in
Speaker 2: some way back in control because you can impact the
Speaker 2: people around you. So that would be my advice is
Speaker 2: just stop looking outward and upward so much at these
Speaker 2: big problems and letting them consume so much energy. And
Speaker 2: it's not about withdrawal. If I'm not saying that, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying like, be at home more alone. We don't
Speaker 2: need more of that. It's about local ties and community
Speaker 2: ties and connections that you could in some way put
Speaker 2: into action Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed my conversation with Rachel and that
Speaker 1: you've learned a bit more about what you can do
Speaker 1: to trust and be trusted more effectively. If you want
Speaker 1: to hear more, be sure to check out Rachel's fabulous
Speaker 1: new audiobook, How to Trust and Be Trusted, available everywhere
Speaker 1: you get your Audio Books. That's a wrap on our
Speaker 1: special series on the World Happiness Report. But not to
Speaker 1: worry because the Happiness Lab will be back next week.
Speaker 1: I'll be chatting with my friend, the happiness expert, Gretchen
Speaker 1: Rubin about her secrets to adulthood. So I hope you'll
Speaker 1: returned soon for the Happiness Lab with me, Doctor Larry
Speaker 1: Santos