Are We Seeing the Death of Trust?

Source: Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay. Used with permission.

I read today that “America is now home to the least-trusting informed public of the 28 countries that the firm surveyed, right below South Africa” (Friedman, 2021). We are very informed these days—but we are also very suspicious of information. We don’t trust teachers. We don’t trust doctors. We don’t trust our elections. We trust dark sites on the internet more than our neighbors. It wasn’t always like this.

When I was a child, there were experts and there were the rest of us. We did not try to become experts at everything. Parents did most of the parenting and educators did most of the educating. Physicians decided how to cure their patients and pharmaceutical companies sold their products to experts in medicine instead of the general public. Gas stations knew how to pump gas and check our transmission oil, and we didn’t have to learn all about cars just because we owned one. We didn’t have to learn everything about everything just to get by; one skill was enough to find social esteem (because trust in something we call division of labor did the rest; Munger, 2023).

The Locus of Trust

But today, we are expected to know everything—from the complex effects of organic chemistry on human anatomy to the inner workings of hybrid internal combustion engines. Today, more and more responsibility falls upon the individual. In psychology, we call this center of credit and blame the locus of control (Wang & Anderson, 1994). Across human history, this locus has been gravitating from an external one to an internal one—even though fewer and fewer modern things are within our personal control.

When I was a child, we trusted the school system to teach our children, doctors to treat our diseases, and psychologists to identify our problems and help us overcome them. It was a bit lopsided, yes. I must admit that parents didn’t have a lot of say in their child’s education — but they didn’t need very much because parents trusted the education system. Patients didn’t have a lot of say in their treatment either — but we didn’t need to learn medicine to ask for help at the clinic. And self-help was not an industry larger than the idea of helping one another based on diverse talents.

The Origin of Reverence

However, maybe there is a bright side. A thing we lose when we learn to do everything ourselves is reverence for others. When we are the locus of control, even if somehow we make all the right decisions and avoid all the blame, the object of our gratitude also gravitates inside. With all this self-credit, we prune away the old habit of honoring others for our good fortune (and applaud ourselves instead).

We point fingers at the school system (because we think we can do better). We blame doctors and the medical community (because we think we can do better). We blame our children for not growing up (because we think we can do better). No one seems to be grateful anymore because everybody thinks they can do a better job. If we didn’t think we could do better, we might actually be more grateful. Even experts in neuroscience remind us that we can’t all be better at everything than everyone else (Sharot, 2012).

The Science of Regret

Many of my friends are teachers of early education, and most wish they had chosen a different career; neither parents nor children seem to trust them. Many of my friends are nurses, and most of them wish they had chosen a different career; neither patients, doctors, nor hospitals seem to trust them. They all went to school with high hopes of esteem but find themselves in jobs they regret.

The pendulum of power has swung too far the other way, it seems, and so has the direction of our gratitude. In the struggle to know how to do everything, we seem to have lost the ability to revere anything or to trust anyone. A mystery leads to awe, whereas knowledge mainly tends to vanity. Although I may know how to fix my own car, heal my own diseases, and tutor my own children, I no longer know which way to face to say thank you.

External vs. Internal Regard

Though self-esteem is a very good thing to have, as a psychologist and a teacher, I have to admit that the esteem of others is a far, far better thing to hope for. My daughter once told me she didn’t believe me because I’m her dad, and dads always favor their daughters. Each of us needs to entrust the care of our children to others at some point, and we also need to show our children that we trust that others will love and care for them just as much as we do. That is not the example, however, that we are giving them when we get too involved in their education, healthcare, and so on. We are teaching them not to trust anybody, nor to honor anybody.

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We are more informed these days, but the costs include suspicion and paranoia. When we exhibit mistrust for our schools, our healthcare, and our government, our children are learning what to trust. Inconsistencies during this need to learn trust for oneself and one’s environment can lead to doubts about both. But if we show a little trust in our society, if we have a little faith, our children may feel the same faith inside—when they face times as uncertain as ours.