Reasons you shouldn't trust anyone!

23rd of January 2022

Lead Image

There are so many reasons to not trust anyone, in fact I believe that at some point in your life, you must have discovered that there is a fundamental difference between what people say and what they do. This alone is enough reason to not trust anyone.

1. We make unconscious decisions

The first reason, why you can't trust what people say they will do is because we often act, unconsciously, on the design of the system we are interacting with.

In one study, Eric Johnson, and Daniel Goldstein, investigated why people would participate in an organ donor program. Participants had to fill in a form where they were asked to participate in the program or not, using different default options. What the researchers found was that the huge difference between two groups of countries, those giving a lot versus those giving very little, had to do with the type of default option they used.

When they asked participants to check the box if they wanted to participate in the program, many people did not join. While when they changed the default option to check the box if they don’t want to participate, the results of participants joining the program dramatically changed, and donation rates were about twice as high. In fact, in both cases, people did not check the box. Like if it would take too much energy to check it off.

But the difference is that in the reversed default option, people automatically enrolled in the program. Maybe became donors against their wishes. However, when the participants were asked why they have joined the program, they answered like it was their own conscious decision and that they think it is important to contribute and help people in need. You’ll never hear someone say that it was because of the default option.

This study indicates that the design of the system you interact with, influences your behaviour unconsciously. Be it the design of the form, the design of your environment, or the design of the product and anything else you are using.

Defaults and Donation decisions

2. Our Memory is biased

The second reason is the pity that our memory is biased. Unfortunately, but yes, we are not only very forgetful, but there is also a very high chance that the things we remember are far from what really happened. Our memories are fuzzy, blurry snapshots of the past our brains are constantly tinkering with. They might fill in the gaps, incorporate things from the present into memories, or alter it, in sometimes dramatic ways.

Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory, has even conducted hundreds of experiments throughout her career that show it's easy to change someone's memory about an event. For example, in one study, she successfully implanted in 25% of the participants, ethically not surgically, the false memory of having been lost in a shopping mall as children. One participant even remembered that the imaginary man who rescued him was cool. Thus proving that the memory can be easily altered- a reason to not trust everything anyone says. Elizabeth Loftus theory explained

3. Our Honesty is questionable

The third reason why you can’t trust what people say, is because we are not always completely honest. Maybe because we're afraid of the truth, or because we just don't want to upset our mothers (lol) … And some have many more reasons to lie. But a common one is often because we want to fit into the group and be socially accepted.

For example, if you ask someone if they’ve washed their hands when leaving the bathroom, or disinfected them before entering the building, which is super important in pandemic times, chances are people will say yes, even if they haven’t or have forgotten.

4. Too optimistic future self-image

When we ask people about the future, we are faced with our often too optimistic future self-image, our inability to predict the future, and our failure to commit.

Let’s first discuss our tendency to be too optimistic, and therefore we make untrustworthy statements. Perhaps you recognize the following situation? “Mom, I promise I won’t drink that much this time.”. And then later that night says, “I can drink a bowl of beer on my own without vomiting.”. And eventually ending up in your bed full of vomit, and of course, an angry mom. I could tell you more examples while drinking my bottle of beer, but it's quite clear.

We often say things like we are superheroes. Heroes who are less likely to experience negative events in the future. Perhaps some with luck get a positive result, that reinforces their overconfidence, but usually these overly optimistic statements cause us to lose trust because we don't do what we've said.

5. Inability to predict the future

Besides being over-optimistic, we are generally, not great at predicting what will happen in the future environment.

For example, a large company in the sky of Los Angeles, asked their angel workforce, if they would take an apple if they bought some. More than 60% said yes. But the reality was that almost nobody took the apples, because they had to compete with the more delicious, unhealthy food in the cafeteria.

6. Commitment Issues

hat about our ability to commit and be consistent with what we say? Although Consistency and Commitment are one of Dr. Robert Cialdini’s principles of persuasion, a lot of people are really bad at being consistent with what they say.

Take for example how many times you’ve heard people make New Year's Resolutions that would change their life for the better? And how many of them were successfully accomplished? The figure will be very low.

It lies in our human nature to dream, fantasize, and believe in a better future. We make commitments. Start with high motivation, and eventually lose our dedication due to many different circumstances, that magically prevent us from prevailing.

Conclusion

The major point of this article is to point out that there is a fundamental difference between what people say and do, therefore, you should not blindly trust anyone. There are many more reasons why you shouldn’t trust anyone but the few mentioned above should be taken very seriously. We act unconsciously on the design of the environment, our memory is biased, people are not always completely honest, We often make too optimistic statements, we are very bad at predicting the future environment., and finally, we fail to commit to what we say!