I don’t have that much work experience. Thus when it comes to the topic, trust, the first thing come to my mind is that what I am going to describe in the following. This matter had a strong influence on me. At that time, I was a junior high school student. She was my classmate and we had the same interests and same tutoring class. Besides, our parents knew each other well. Talking about why I chose to trust her even when my mom told me that she doubted her stole the money, I think I can explain it by using the following two facts I read about. Firstly, human beings are naturally predisposed to trust---it’s in our genes and our childhood learning---and by and large it’s a survival mechanism that has served our species well. This tendency to trust people which resemble us may be rooted in the possibility that such kind of people might be related to us. Other studies have shown that we like and trust people who are members of our own social group more than we like outsiders or strangers[1]. Secondly, based on the model of trust----one of the decision maker factors is number of similarities. It said that ‘At heart we are still quite tribal, which is why people tend to more easily trust those who appear similar to themselves. Similarities may include common values, membership in a defined group (such as the manufacturing department, or a local church, or even a gender), and shared personality traits (extroversion, for instance, or ambition). In deciding how much to trust someone, people often begin by tallying up their similarities and differences[2]. As a junior high student, I was pure in thought and it was impossible for me to think a lot, so I trusted her so much. The material also gives an example about choosing candidate[3]. People tend to choose the one who dresses like you and speaks like you. However, what I want to say is that even if we choose the one who shares similarities with us, we still cannot deeply understand a person, because people’s behaviors can change along with the situation, and meanwhile their personality cannot change that easy. Most of the time what we see is the behaviors, not the personality. Another fact supporting my point of view is that one illusion causes us to underestimate the likelihood that bad things will happen to us.
At this time, I never thought that this kind of thing will happen to me. I even yelled at my mum because doubting my friend was impolite. However, it turned out that my friend actually deceived me. My parents decided to tell her mother. I couldn’t stop my mum doing this at that time I think that we directly communicate with her would be a better solution; it was not that humiliated for her. However, my mother had her own idea, and we were still children, so we needed parents to teach us in dealing with things. She was right then. No matter in what way we do to expose this thing, I wouldn’t trust her any more. Since this thing, I didn’t change the attitude towards her and I didn’t tell anyone else in our class. I protected her from being hurt by words, but deeply in my heart, I didn’t trust her anymore. What I learn from this instance is that don’t trust anyone so easily, and don’t believe the behaviors, but make use of them. Trust takes time to develop.
Actually I did have some work experience in Japan. The shop I worked for needs settlement to be done every night. Usually, the money can’t reach a balance, but my colleagues always could find a way to make it reach the balance. The boss never doubted it and they never told. The leader put too much trust in the employee. But in other hands the working environment there is really good. I think it is a high-trust working environment, and working there is really fun and comfortable.
References:
1 《Rethinking trust》 Harvard business
review
June 2009 P70
2 《The decision to trust》 Harvard business
review September 2006 P57
