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Who Can You Trust? New relationships can't withstand breaches of confidence as easily as long-term romances, friendships 
Trust is a building block for every relationship. But when breached too soon, the fallout may be permanent, a new survey suggests. The results show that early violations of trust can be particularly harmful to the relationship and may never go away. "First impressions matter when you want to build a lasting trust," says Robert Lount, co-author of the study and assistant professor of management and human resources at Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business. "If you get off on the wrong foot, the relationship may never be completely right again. It's easier to rebuild trust after a breach if you already have a strong relationship." In two related experiments, Lount and his colleagues used the famous psychology game, the prisoner's dilemma, to simulate violations of trust in relationships. The participants were unknowingly playing a computer, which was programmed to defect at certain points during the game. In the experiment, participants who experienced a breach of trust, or defect, at the beginning of the game were the least likely to cooperate at the end. They cooperated less than 70 percent in the final 10 rounds, suggesting they had the least trust in their partners. Participants who experienced a trust breach latest in the game-after 10 rounds of cooperation-showed the most cooperation at the end of the game, cooperating more than 90 percent of the time. "An immediate breach of trust is particularly difficult to overcome, and later breaches are considerably less harmful," Lount says. "Our results suggest that immediate breaches are especially costly because they seriously damage the impressions people have about their partner, and that's hard to repair." |
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