Why Social Trust is Broken and How it is Ruining our Society
Social trust is broken. In US only 19% of the millennials trust other people. Every new generation trusts others less. Distrust is going out of control faster than you think.
India has 1.3Billion people — people with drastically varying socio-economic background and life values. How they interact with each other defines the state of the country today.
“People often assume that strangers are trustworthy on the basis of crude social affinities, such as a shared race, religion, or hometown.” ~KAREN S. COOK
We all have a subconscious urge to trust people who are similar to us. But in a country like India, whether you like it or not, you’ll bump into people who are very different from you.
Do we trust them? Different from you or not, consider a stranger sitting next to you in a public event. Can we trust them with our shoulder bag to take a quick washroom break? Probably not. Is it possible to use busy public transport without the fear of someone flicking your wallet? In a bank when someone borrows our pen to write a cheque, we would want to secretly keep an eye on them. Sometimes we are ashamed that we distrust people.
Stress: and the tug of war between shame and safety
Approach-avoidance conflicts occur when there is one goal with both positive and negative effects that makes it appealing and unappealing simultaneously.
Often, a small amount of psychological stress is motivating and thus productive. But collective daily stress from mistrust is enormous. The types of stress due to mistrust is not exactly excusable —Approach-avoidance conflict is just one of them. The effects of this stress has been overlooked because mistrust itself is overlooked.
A positive society should expose themselves to only healthy levels of stress. This will avoid uncontrollable behaviours that may eventually destroy itself.
A high proportion of mental energy is wasted coping with stress. Since our attention span is limited, we are losing out on achieving contentment and reaching personal goals. We are forced into this war.
Reflections of Mistrust
Mistrust is vented out in various colours and quantities — most notably in 4 forms.
- Lack of empathy/Indifference towards others
- Unethical response/Dishonesty
- Passive-aggression
- Violence
Some of the above are seemingly harmless but some threaten the society beyond repair by starting a chain reaction.
Road Rage: A Chain Reaction
Consider our roads. Aggressive driving usually starts with lack of empathy towards fellow commuters. Why? We want to reach faster. We assume that others are going to be aggressive — they possibly will. When they do, we are in a silent agreement and takes micro-pleasure in predicting the ‘future’.
“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it”
~CHARLES SWINDOLL
It also means that if you follow traffic rules, you are at loss and thus a fool, or that’s what you will eventually think of yourself. The herd mentality of negativity kicks in.
Studies say that the tendency to rash drive comes when one sees other fellow drivers’ aggression on the roads. It slowly starts from there until the aggression becomes contagious. Good deeds aren’t encouraged on the roads. In-fact, you have an incentive for being THE bad guy. The constant stress from wanting to be a good guy will eventually stop you to break-free and be super opportunistic.
Economics of Trust
The blockchain and smart contracts can arguably replace the legal system for businesses. It can offer a trustless infrastructure to enforce predictable actions by all the parties involved.
But this is new. We aren’t quite there yet. Right now, business relationships rely on mutual trust. Legal documents and judiciary are there to just support enforcement — not to guarantee trust. We continue to spend money and resources on legal help.
Used goods market and shared economy are supposed to be less complicated. Their main advantage is lower costs and low-wastage and considered to be one of the most impactful. But we can’t totally digest why someone is selling his nice TV for cheap. We don’t carpool because of lack of trust between the driver and fellow commuters. Mistrust is causing quite an economic loss to individuals.
When it is difficult to trust each other, there comes friction to operate a free market economy. The advantages of lowcost, less cumbersome, direct business deals are out. The opportunity cost is in.
Trusting Corporations
Can we trust the corporates wholeheartedly?
Recently a major bank ‘tricked’ my mom by opening a recurring account without her permission. We rarely find out the fraud as they are pretty much buried in corporate jargons and stuff that’s not easy to spot.
- Do you sometimes count money dispensed by an ATM?
- Did your phone company “under-bill” you (instead of over-billing) because of of a certain “billing error?”
- Do you receive SMS/Email promos even after you unsubscribe?
- Do beauty creams whiten the skin?
- Do you think Flat 50% discounts are legitimate?
- Why are some companies make it difficult when you want to redeem your loyalty points? Is the UI as good as the UI where you spend money on them?
Did you experience some them in real-life? Are some of the above, if not all, deliberate actions to trick you? How did you react? Well, companies usually get away with the so called “mistakes” and “soft-lies” by individually weeding-out only those who voice out against them — letting the “mistake” remain.
Usually we are ready to bargain with an autorickshaw driver for a small amount but not in a bank or supermarket. Interesting fact is that an autowallah is an individual and bank is a business establishment. We have concessions towards established, everyday brands. We are hypocritical right there.
Authorities Respond Poorly
Authorities hardly care about the micro-issues like this. Like individuals, Government too, do not trust other individuals but trust corporations instead. They assume the current corporate structure prevents bad actions.
When the government de-monetized major circulating currency notes for arguable reasons igniting major panic in the country, we couldn’t do much. Same situation when we discovered that major chunk of petrol price we pay go to the Governments, not to the oil companies.
Indian Government argued in court that the country doesn’t need privacy as a fundamental right. Common man cared less because they did not grow up experiencing privacy. We do not value it enough to fight for it. People who demand better privacy are considered wrong because some argue that you do not have to fear if you do not have anything to hide.
Corruption is everywhere. It is a product of lack of empathy similar to that in the road rage scenario. People are forced to bribe to get ahead in line. The competition here apparently are people who do not intent to bribe — bribers are expecting to hold an unfair advantage. If they don’t bribe, expect delays. Face social pressure to be labelled as incapable.
We do not trust our governments that well. However, since distrust is assumed, they have no incentive to earn trust from you.
Both governments and corporates takes advantage of the fact that individuals fundamentally do not trust each other. Both can choose to be less-trustworthy and can still getaway because we think relatively. Needless to say, at this very moment, individuals do not hold enough collective power to correct either of these two.
Where is it coming from?
We grew up without trusting each other — mistrust is the original state of mind. We do not know how a society built over mutual trust will function. For us, every other person is a potential threat to our well being. We create tiny, isolated, imaginary communities around how rich, how well taught, how many languages we speak, the state we hail from, skin colour, surname and religion. It’s a complex enough classification problem.
Going back to the cave
Your environment influences you. I have seen those who were so aggressive on Indian roads glide smoothly in Freeways of California. Social mistrust makes us more primitive. Primitive man possessed more selfish motives than goodwill. It’s also why, to win an argument, people try their best to provoke you. When you look aggressive, you become less agreeable to an onlooker. You lose your ground support every time you raise your voice. Nevertheless, at this point, you need more aggressive methods to make others agree with you, like force. Isn’t it interesting that a primitive man was a lone aggressive thug compared to the social animals we supposedly are?
“Thou Shalt Not Judge”
The specific issues we dealt here aren't black and white. Sometimes mistrust isn’t appropriate. The purpose if this post isn’t to judge. We are merely trying to see how trust is broken and how it affects us. Social trust is required for human well being but we have downplayed its importance for petty reasons for so long. Many day-to-day life issues are byproducts of lack of trust — mainly lack of good will. Fixing mistrust can positively affect us ways beyond the scope of this post.
