All about trust
“I don’t trust you anymore!”
“I trust you with all of my heart!”
Our autopilot brain tends to treat trust as all-or-nothing: I either trust someone, or I don’t. This makes sense given the brain’s job to keep us alive efficiently. But in real life, relationships are complex—and trust works more like a system of parts than a single switch.
It can be more helpful and realistic to think about trust as more of a plurality, something that contains multiple parts. This is because we function with multiple types of trust with ourselves, others, and larger systems in multiple ways. And because of this, it is possible to have a lot of one type of trust in someone, but a very low amount of a different type of trust with that same person.
For example, you might trust your friend to watch your children but not to pay you back without a reminder. Does this mean you don't trust your friend? No! It means that, given their past behavior, you can trust them to do one thing, but not so much the other.
The most effective way to approach trust is to start with neutrality when we are starting to get to know someone. Then, as people behave in certain ways, our different types of trust in them can either increase or decrease. Here are the most common categories of trust we have with one another (this is a more straightforward list for the sake of learning, but it’s important to remember that sometimes these different types function in combinations):
Types of Trust:
1. Task Trust:
Reliability & Predictability Trust
Definition: Trust that someone will consistently follow through on commitments and that their future behavior will align with their established patterns.
Examples:
A friend who always shows up when they say they will;
trusting that a dependable colleague will meet deadlines based on their track record.
Competence Trust
Definition: Trust in someone’s skills, knowledge, or ability to handle a specific task effectively.
Examples: Relying on a doctor for a diagnosis or a mechanic to repair your car.
Integrity & Intentional Trust
Definition: Trust that someone’s actions align with their stated ethical principles and that their motives consistently appear to be genuine and supportive of your well-being or shared goals.
Examples:
Trusting a leader to be transparent and fair;
believing your partner has your best interests at heart.
Communication Trust
Definition: Trust in someone’s ability and willingness to communicate honestly, clearly, and openly.
Examples:
Trusting a teammate to give constructive feedback;
believing a partner will share their feelings instead of hiding them.
2) Relational Trust
Emotional & Vulnerability Trust
Definition: Trust that someone will respond to your emotions or personal disclosures with kindness, respect, and care—and not use them against you-as well as trust that they can and will repair if they miss the mark.
Examples:
Confiding in a friend who listens without judgment;
trusting a partner not to exploit your openness.
Physical & Safety Trust
Definition: Trust that someone will respect your physical boundaries and protect your safety.
Examples:
Trusting a driver to drive responsibly;
trusting a friend to respect your comfort level with touch.
Social & Cultural Trust
Definition: Trust that someone will navigate social settings, group norms, or cultural boundaries with awareness and respect.
Examples:
A friend behaving appropriately in a formal event;
A partner representing shared values in public.
Financial Trust
Definition: Trust in someone’s responsibility with money and shared financial matters.
Examples:
Trusting a spouse with joint finances;
trusting a financial advisor’s judgment.
3. Additional types of trust
Contextual & Conditional Trust
Definition: Trust that is limited to specific contexts, conditions, or timeframes.
Examples:
Trusting a babysitter with your kids for an evening;
trusting an acquaintance with a specific story from your life while not sharing other information with them.
Reparative & Intuitive Trust
Definition: Trust rebuilt after a breach or established based on instinct without clear evidence. Intuition isn’t about wishful thinking—it’s often built on subtle cues your body and brain have picked up, even if you can’t name them yet.
Examples:
Learning to trust someone again after an apology and changed behavior;
feeling someone is trustworthy upon first meeting them.
How to Assess and Calibrate Trust
Step 1: Identify the Context of Trust
Think about the specific situation where you're evaluating your trust in someone. Ask yourself:
What types of trust matter most for the role this person plays in my life (friend, coworker, parent, etc.)? Selecting no more than five is recommended.
Examples:
You likely think certain types of trust are more important in a friendship rather than with a coworker. For example, to have a trusting friendship you might want it to be high in communication or vulnerability trust - you can trust they keep secrets.
Whereas this may be less important with a coworker. With a coworker it may be more important to have predictability and competence trust - you can trust them to reliably do their job well.
What behaviors indicate someone may or may not be trusted in a specific way?
Examples:
For you to have high vulnerability trust with a friend, the behaviors you need to see from them might include keeping secrets, being willing to listen, validating your emotions, etc.
For you to have high predictability trust with a coworker, the behaviors you need to see from them might include they arrive when they say they will, they follow through with what they say, etc.
Step 2: Assess Past Behavior
Once you’ve identified what role, types of trust, and behaviors, reflect on how this person/entity has behaved in the past in the specific category of trust. Ask yourself:
Have they exhibited behaviors that align with a specific type of trust?
Have they done this once or more than once?
Have they exhibited behaviors that indicate that it may not be a good idea to trust them with this specific type of trust?
Examples:
Your friend has kept secrets for you before and communicates openly, so their past behavior supports high trust in vulnerability trust and communication trust.
A couple of times, your coworker has said they would do something, but then they don’t do it, so their past behavior does not support high trust in predictability.
Step 3: Check for Discrepancies
Determine if your current level of trust aligns with their past behavior. Ask yourself:
Am I aligning my level of trust with their past behavior?
What might be influencing this discrepancy (e.g., past unrelated experiences, emotions, assumptions)?
Examples:
You realize you’re hesitant to trust a friend with secrets fully because of a past betrayal by someone else, even though this friend has consistently been trustworthy.
You realize you are expecting things from a coworker that your former coworker would do, but the current coworker hasn’t said they are committed to.
Step 4: Recalibrate Trust
Decide if you need to adjust your trust level. Use these guiding questions:
If my trust is lower than their past behavior indicates is warranted, can I give them more trust in this category based on their track record?
If my trust is higher than their past behavior indicates is warranted, what boundaries or adjustments would help align my trust with reality?
Examples:
You decide to share the secret but clarify boundaries (e.g., “This is really important to me—please keep it private”) to ease any lingering doubts.
You realize you haven’t communicated your expectations with your coworker, so you might want to try that first and see if it correlates with an increase in the trust-specific behavior.
Step 5: Adjust and Evaluate
Act on your recalibration of trust and observe what happens next. Then reflect on what happened and use these questions to assess whether your adjustment was helpful:
What did I decide to do differently based on my trust assessment? (e.g., Set a boundary, share something personal, delegate a task, pull back emotionally)
How did the other person respond? (Did their behavior match the level of trust I offered? Did they surprise me?)
What internal signals did I notice during and after the interaction? (e.g., Relief, tension, validation, regret, second-guessing, peace)
Did the outcome support, challenge, or shift my trust calibration? (Is my trust in this area stronger, weaker, or about the same now?)
What, if anything, do I want to continue doing, stop doing, or adjust again? (Should I give more trust, less trust, clarify expectations, take space?)
Am I being present moment/fact-based in how I’m evaluating this person or situation—or am I carrying over expectations or fears from elsewhere?
What did I learn about my own trust-building or boundary-setting tendencies?
Expanding Trust: Trusting Ourselves and Larger Systems
When we think about trust, we often focus on our relationships with others. But trust also extends inward, to ourselves, and outward, to larger entities and systems. These forms of trust shape how we move through the world—how we make decisions, set boundaries, and navigate uncertainty.
Trusting Ourselves
Self-trust is the foundation of emotional sturdiness. It includes:
Reliability with ourselves: Can I follow through on the promises I make to myself?
Emotional trust: Can I listen to my gut, validate my feelings, and respond with care?
Decision-making trust: Can I make a choice even if I don’t have all the information—and have my own back if it doesn’t go as planned?
Sometimes only acting according to our autopilot brain erodes self-trust through habits of perfectionism, people-pleasing, or second-guessing. This erosion often shows up as inner criticism, avoidance, or over-functioning in relationships—even when we intellectually know better. Rebuilding self-trust often involves small acts of consistency, boundaries, and self-compassion.
Reflection Questions:
In what areas do I trust myself?
Where do I tend to second-guess or override myself?
What would it look like to rebuild trust with myself one small promise at a time?
Trusting Larger Systems and Institutions
In addition to people and ourselves, we also navigate trust with organizations and institutions—healthcare systems, schools, religious communities, governments, workplaces, and more. These systems are made up of people, but they also have their own structures, priorities, and limitations.
Sometimes we trust an institution deeply. Sometimes our trust is specific or conditional. And sometimes that trust has been violated due to harm, exclusion, or unmet expectations—especially for those whose identities or needs aren’t well-supported by the system.
You might trust your therapist as a person (emotional trust), but not trust the healthcare system they work in (predictability or integrity trust). Or you might trust your school to offer good classes (competence trust), but not to respond fairly to complaints (communication or reparative trust).
Understanding this layered trust can help you make more informed, empowered choices in how you engage.
Reflection Questions:
What systems or institutions do I interact with regularly?
What types of trust feel most important in those settings? (e.g., communication, predictability, integrity?)
What is this institution actually built to do—and what isn’t it equipped to do (even if we wish it were)?
Have I been expecting a kind of support or responsiveness that the system isn't designed to provide?
How might this system's rules, structure, or incentives make it hard for people to exhibit the behaviors of certain types of trust?
Have I or people like me experienced patterns of harm or exclusion here? What do those patterns tell me about the limits of trust?
What power do I have in this system? (e.g., Can I ask for a different provider? Speak up? Seek support elsewhere? Set boundaries?)
What small or strategic action could increase the chance I’ll get what I need—even if it doesn’t fix the whole system?
Understanding what a system can and can’t offer doesn’t mean giving up—it means choosing where to invest your energy and what kind of support you want to seek elsewhere.
