An overview of trust states (exploring trust as a non-binary phenomena)
To trust or not to trust. That's actually the wrong question. Here's a way to think about trust that's helpful.
In previous articles I have mentioned the idea of ‘trust states’. This is a way of thinking about trust - the belief one party has in another’s trustworthiness - that considers both direction and strength.
By direction I mean whether the trust judgement was positive or negative. By strength I mean the extent to which it was positive or negative.
Hilary Sutcliffe and colleagues did a great job of visualising a model for this in their 2020 work.
In this model 7 ‘states’ are proposed. Each state is likely to inform or encourage certain types of behaviours.
I’ve found models like this particularly useful when conducting research that seeks to understand the relationship between a person’s assessment of an organisations’ trustworthiness (basically how well they believe the organisations is enacting the 7 qualities; intent, integrity, respect, fairness, openness, inclusion and competence) and the ‘level’ of trust or ‘trust state’. At times these data points may contradict one another a little, but in my experience the relationship is usually pretty tight. By this I mean that positive assertions (say above an average of 5.5 on a 7 point likert scale) of the qualities tend to lead to ‘active trust’.
When we discuss the downsides of excessive trust, we will explore the ‘healthy zone’ in relation to this model of trust states.
A quick word of caution: Models like this should not replace the explicit focus on the 7 qualities. Trust remains a variable you cannot control, but can seek to influence. The best way to consistently influence towards more positive trust states is to be worthy of trust. The best way to be worthy of trust is to bring to life the 7 qualities in everything that you do.
Summary
Trust states refer to the direction and strength of a trust judgement
They help describe the types of thoughts, emotions and behaviours that may be associated with a given trust judgement
They can be used to guide various research practices that enhance your understanding of the impact work on the 7 qualities of trustworthiness might be having on the ‘level’ of trust different stakeholders place in your organisation