Modern science has not payed much attention to the biological aspects of trust. The few studies which have been a part of the academic community have recently be supplemented by a study made public by neuroscientist Thomas Baumgartner and colleagues at the University of Zuerich. It combines different disciplines and methodologies to understand better how the brain adapts to breaches of trust. If I wanted to be lazy I would point you the full study and then expected you to draw your own conclusions from the information presented.
It turns out that sustaining and creating trust is not as easy as spraying someone with a Trust Spray. Studies prove that there is a neuropeptide called oxytocin which is capable of actually increasing trust between humans. When the brain is subjected to oxytocin there is a noticeable decrease in activation in the amygdala, the midbrain regions, and the dorsal striatum. All of those neural systems are used in mediating fear processing (amygdala and midbrain regions) and behavioural adaptations to feedback information (dorsal striatum).
The saying:
Do What You Say, Say What You Do.
turns out to be much better advise than anyone could have anticipated. Trust is strongly influenced by a neurochemical reaction, what triggers that reaction is absence or fear and feedback which is processed to match the expectations you had in the first place. Driven by this powerful hormone, oxytocin gets created under various circumstances. Those range from when the letdown reflex happens with mothers to individuals having an orgasm. Armed with this new found knowledge it should be fairly easy for anyone in the lifestyle to do the right thing. It really is as easy as doing what you said you would be doing and creating an environment that is safe.
Let us go for some concrete examples:
- You do not change physical interactions which have been negotiated before
- You respect an individuals safe-word
- You refuse to execute and type of play you feel you do not know enough about
- You offer a clean environment yo play in
- You are open and friendly about what you would like to do and how
- You are interested in feedback when you believe you are finished with an individual
Those seem like common sense, unfortunately common sense is not so common as it seems. All of the items mentioned above are very basic tools to help you understand what it means to become trustworthy to another being. This type of behaviour extends not only to humans, many animals with higher brain functions react the same way to individuals which constantly satisfy their expectations.
You can apply the general principle not only to interactions between individuals, many of these (if not all of them) also apply to interactions with a group or group interactions. Our brain actually makes things quite easy for us. We have a natural disposition to being social, because our brain will actually release oxytocin just because we are interacting with another human being. It seems that over the cause of evolution those of us who were social were more successful and as such we have a natural tendecy to want to interact with others.
While most of these interactions and their outcome are governed by extremely subconscious behaviourism the act of building trust encompasses our brains’ ability to actually store and recall previous interactions with a group or an individual. The level of trust we experience towards a group or individual is the sum of those interactions. Building trust can be a lengthy process and different type of interactions require different levels of trust. Abuse and misuse of trust will almost always lead to a complete loss of that previous trust structure. In layman’s terms that means that you have to screw up only once for someone to completely mistrust you again. I would hope that this experience is not anything that is new to my readers. In every relationship a crises such as that can easily be triggered. Cheating on a partner is often the pivotal example. Even though a huge amount of trust has been built up through thousands of positive feedback loops, that one act of betrayal erases all of the good and leaves only mistrust and a feeling of dread.
Which leads us to the topic of consistency. What better way is there to create trust than to constantly create a feedback loop that oozes positive experience. Recognising mistakes and apologising for an experience that might have not been ideal is a part of creating that positive feedback loop. I strongly believe that being humble as an individual allows others to more easily ease themselves into a position where they are comfortable with your presence and that process of developing trust can start.
In summary; do as you say, be humble and admit to your mistakes and quite frankly do not be a creep. If you can mange to throw a little bit of charm in the mix then you should be well on the way of being in a position where others can trust you and can learn with you.