A whole brain analysis also shows that the tendency to trust is reflected in the structure of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. These findings advance neural models that associate the structure and function of the human brain with social decision-making and the tendency trust other people.
What Causes Trust Issues? Possible origins of trust issues include low self-esteem, past betrayals, mental health disorders, adverse childhood experiences or traumatic events. Any time your sense of safety or security is threatened, it can cause trust issues to arise.
Oxytocin: the neurotransmitter of trust
A study in 2008 identified a neurochemical, called oxytocin, which makes the brain more receptive to feel trust towards a stranger.
Once trust is broken we often experience tremendous anxiety and resentment, which can create a wall between ourselves and our partners. We might withdraw from those close to us and feel quite lonely.
Neuroscience identified that Trust together with Purpose creates Joy at work. In high-trust organisations, people feel good about themselves through the interaction with trusting colleagues and low stress levels.
Having issues with trust isn't a standalone mental illness, but it may indicate an underlying mental health disorder. Examples of mental health conditions with trust issues as potential symptoms include attachment disorders, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and personality disorders.
To trust someone, especially someone unfamiliar to us, our brains build a model of what the person is likely to do and why. In other words, we use both theory of mind and empathy during every collaborative endeavor. And the other person intuitively does this about us, too.
Trust issues can be a sign that someone has experienced a significant amount of trauma — but that doesn't mean that they aren't working through their past experiences.
After experiencing a trauma, it is hard to trust the intentions and actions of others. Someone has likely shown you that they are not safe to be trusted even if they were in a position to be trusted. This could be when a person is abused by a family member or friend, a person of authority, or a romantic partner.
Breaking Trust
When someone violates our trust, usually through dishonesty, neglect, or disloyalty, we usually feel upset, hurt, angry, sad, and foolish. We come to distrust that person because they violated our faith and confidence in them. Oftentimes, when people violate our trust, we withdraw from them if we can.
Growing bodies of research investigating the biological basis of trust, found that oxytocin regulates trust [4–6]. Oxytocin, a neuropeptide, is synthesized in the hypothalamus and acts as a neuromodulator in the central nervous [7].
In the brain, oxytocin acts as a chemical messenger and has an important role in many human behaviours including sexual arousal, recognition, trust, romantic attachment and mother–infant bonding. As a result, oxytocin has been called the 'love hormone' or 'cuddle chemical'.
Oxytocin, the trust and social- bonding chemical, is released into our bloodstream by independent neurons in our heart and neurons in our brain to create harmony and understanding. This chemical binds families, teams and cultures together, making people feel happy and trusting.
Trust Issues
You may feel like your partner isn't telling you everything. Or it might seem like there is much you don't know about him (or her), and that he is unwilling to share. If you feel like your partner has a hard time trusting you or telling you the truth (or vice-versa!) it's a serious red flag.
People With Trust Issues
Someone with trust issues will often have feelings of anxiety, worry or doubt about their relationship. This can result in big feelings, and attempts to get more information from your partner (which can wind up feeling to them like they're being accused of something they didn't do).
Childhood trauma involving abuse can make trusting others very difficult. Trust issues can show up as extreme independence, in which you can not allow yourself to trust that someone else will come through for you. You fear being vulnerable like that or relying on someone else.
The symptoms of PTSD can cause problems with trust, closeness, communication, and problem solving. These problems may affect the way the survivor acts with others. In turn, the way a loved one responds to him or her affects the trauma survivor.
Cognitive models of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) propose that trauma entails cognitive alterations of increased distrust and perceived threat from others.
Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is a mental health condition marked by a long-term pattern of distrust and suspicion of others without adequate reason to be suspicious (paranoia). People with PPD often believe that others are trying to demean, harm or threaten them.
If you live with paranoid personality disorder, you may have persistent difficulty trusting others. This may cause you great distress and get in the way of building stable relationships. Paranoid personality disorder isn't a personal choice.
Trust is a feeling that comes from common beliefs and values, common experiences, and common traits and characteristics.
Trust is a brain process that binds representations of self, other, situation, and emotion into a neural pattern called a semantic pointer. Trust is rarely absolute, but rather is restricted to particular situations.
distrustful. adjective. a distrustful person does not trust a particular person or thing or people in general.