IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT, YOU WERE PROGRAMMED TO TRUST!

Going through my dozens of old, unpublished articles I am uncovering some wonderful gems. For instance, this evergreen, we’ve all heard about the classic situation of the person who wants a promotion at work and talks to a colleague about it during a coffee break. By lunchtime, the whole department knows about his plans. 

Should this employee rather have been more prudent? Should he have been a bit more careful and anticipated that the other guy wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut? The answer was then both “no” and “yes”. It is still, “no” and yes, because, according to neurobiology, we are all programmed to trust our fellow human beings, it’s as simple as that.

 This is what is explained in a study published in the journal Neuroscience where they show that trust is fundamental to our social life, because otherwise if we were afraid of being betrayed the whole time then this would be too stressful and traumatic for us to handle. On the other hand, “yes”, sometimes we do lack caution or to put it another way, we are not too good at applying the three rules that define the dynamics of trust or seeking out a good confidant, so sad, but so true…