Mistrust

Glynis M Breakwell, Author

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781529732078, 9781529732108
• eBook ISBN: 9781529765588
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Emotions in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Mistrust in the 21st century is a major societal concern. This book:

- explores social psychological processes that explain why and how mistrust develops
- considers the effects that it has upon those who are mistrustful and those who are mistrusted
- offers a model of mistrust in individuals and communities which is based on theories of identity and social representation.

With examples ranging from the the 1872 US presidential election to the Trump era, it also considers Brexit, and has a significant focus on the Covid-19 pandemic. By looking at the role of social media, and how mistrust can be weaponised this book interrogates its place in our society. Ultimately, whilst feeling mistrust is part of being human this book warns that we ignore mistrust at our peril.

Dame Glynis M. Breakwell is Professor Emeritus at the University of Bath in the Department of Psychology and has Visiting Professorships at Imperial College, London, University of Surrey and Nottingham Trent University.

Chapter 1 The Nature of Mistrust

The Importance of Mistrust

This book describes a social psychological analysis of the dynamic processes that generate and maintain mistrust. It also considers whether understanding these processes can be used to mitigate some of the adverse effects of mistrust. Writing in a time of a global pandemic, the nature of mistrust has become of vital importance. The role of mistrust in dictating thought, feelings and behaviour in response to health hazards should never be ignored. Mistrust is fundamentally about feeling doubt, suspicion or scepticism about someone or something. It is thus closely associated with uncertainty and with risk. Mistrust involves not being sure whether to trust or distrust. Knowing who or what can be trusted when trying to protect yourself and your family from a fatal disease becomes an existential issue. Mistrust will affect choices that change the course of new diseases, as it has done with others in the past. The reasons for, and targeting of, mistrust need to be understood now more than ever.

Yet mistrust is hardly a new phenomenon. Mistrust has always been a source of intergroup conflict and a foundation for international relations and negotiations. Mistrust has hampered acceptance of the evolution and discoveries of science and medicine. Mistrust has characterised public responses to politics and politicians. Mistrust has been common in business and, of course, in interpersonal relationships. Mistrusting oneself is an experience catalogued throughout history.

Now, mistrust has emerged explicitly in the 21st century as a major societal concern, associated with questioning the motives and competences of established institutions. Governments, media, banks, academia, health professionals, and, inevitably, big business and the very wealthy, as well as leaders in general, all fall under the shadow of mistrust. In many societies traditional family and friendship networks are breaking down, and interpersonal and intergenerational mistrust is increasing. Mistrust matters because it has implications for the wellbeing and behaviour of individuals, communities and whole nations. Mistrust has consequences for the people who feel it and for the people or organisations that are mistrusted. In recent times, mistrust has been used as a rather nebulous explanation for changes in broad-ranging social processes (reflected in protest movements, enhanced violence, and political disengagement) and for shifts in the cognitive or emotional condition of individuals.

Mistrust is rife, it could be said to be unlimited. It is something that we all live with, all of the time. We typically can learn to navigate a route through it – charting a course through our mistrust of others and their mistrust of us, and, indeed, of our mistrust of ourselves. However, the route can be circuitous and difficult. It is easy to lose the way.

Mistrust is a powerful force because, once present, it shapes how we interpret information, the emotions we feel, and the actions we are willing to take. It is not only being mistrustful that has an impact, being mistrusted also has its consequences. This broad spectrum of effects will be explored later in this book. At this point, it is worth acknowledging that mistrust can have positive as well as negative effects. The capacity to mistrust is a platform for self-defence. Active suspicion of some person or thing can lead to the avoidance of danger or reduction of risk. Equally, avoiding premature decisions concerning trustworthiness can reduce the likelihood of missed opportunities. Either way, the capacity for mistrust could be said to offer an evolutionary edge – as long as not taken to extremes. Examination of the costs and benefits of mistrust is a common thread throughout this book.

Given that mistrust is rife and that it has adaptive advantages, it is unlikely to be eradicated soon. Nevertheless, because it is such a powerful force, it is a prime target for manipulation. Influencing or re-directing, if not controlling, mistrust has been a prime goal in most types of conflict in recorded history. This includes conflicts between nations, ideologies and religions, as well as those between individuals or between social groupings. The strategies and techniques used to arouse, channel and deflect mistrust have been increasingly objects for social psychological analysis in recent years. Models of the genesis of conspiracy theories and the promulgation of disinformation and propaganda have been developed. Analyses of how ‘fake news’ is produced and what impact it has are available. Antidotes, like fact-checking, with their variable efficacy have also been studied. At the heart of all these phenomena is the manipulation of mistrust. Findings from some of the studies of them are considered in later chapters.

The main message of this book is that we ignore mistrust at our peril – no matter who we are – and there are some useful things we can learn about how mistrust processes work. Thinking about the dynamics of mistrust can be an analytical frame of reference; a way of orienting yourself when interpreting your experience and coming to decisions. Some people will want to use the insights from this book to try to reduce mistrust or to minimise its negative consequences. Others may be seeking knowledge to ignite and fan the flames of mistrust. Manipulating mistrust is an important tool – for good or ill. It would be wrong to shun the possibility of deliberately using what we know about the dynamics of mistrust sometimes to arouse mistrust. The debate that must be examined in this book is centred on the pragmatic, moral and ethical justifications that might be mounted for acting to promote or enhance mistrust. And, if you can justify to yourself arousing mistrust, how you go about doing it most efficiently.

Trust, Distrust and Mistrust

The thorny task of differentiating between definitions of trust, distrust and mistrust cannot be avoided here. Trust is a topic that has been examined from every social science perspective and from levels of analysis at the systemic (Sztompka, 1999) through to the neurophysiological (Kosfeld et al., 2005). While sociologists focus on the position and role of trust in social systems (e.g. Giddens, 1984) and psychologists have been concerned with the development of the capacity to trust with its implications for personality and wellbeing, social psychologists have examined the role of trust in social influence, group membership and identity processes (Tanis & Postmes, 2005). The concept of trust, as a form of social capital and factor in decision making, is also central to many models in economics. With the advent of the ‘post-truth’ world (McIntyre, 2018) the significance of trust may have changed. There is a shift to encompass a situation where ‘objective facts’ or ‘evidence’ are less influential in shaping individual or public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. Of course, it can be argued that ‘truth’ has always (and long before the label ‘post truth’ was coined) been viewed through the lens of emotions and beliefs. Nevertheless, in a time even less concerned than previously with verified or verifiable facts, trust, or its absence, becomes even more important because it can act as a filter that limits the effect of appeals to emotion and belief. It can also bolster the impact of those appeals, heightening their emotional resonances and their belief relevance.

So how is trust defined? The word itself actually has rather more definitions than can possibly be good for it. They range from the legal (a trust is an arrangement whereby a person – a trustee – holds property as its nominal owner for the good of one or more beneficiaries), to the archaic (where to trust is to give financial credit to someone or to express a hope or expectation). Commonly, it is used to refer to holding a firm belief in the reliability, honesty, strength or ability of someone or something. According to the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary the word trust was more used in publications in 2020 than it had been any period since 1850. The definition of distrust is more unidimensional: the feeling that someone or something cannot be relied upon to be truthful or to behave as they are supposed to. The use of distrust is at its lowest level now since 1850. In contrast, mistrust (like trust) has been used more recently than at any time since 1850. The definition of mistrust focuses upon being suspicious of someone or something, upon being doubtful, wary or full of misgivings. Mistrust, in this sense, is about being actively suspicious about whether to trust a person or thing but without having actually decided. This definition of mistrust is used in this book. Mistrust is a state of active uncertainty that may be fleeting or prolonged. Mistrust is not just about cognitions, it is also often embedded in emotional responses (i.e. fear, anger, love). Mistrust is of particular interest when considering how people respond to hazards where the estimates of risk are themselves uncertain. This is examined in Chapter 2.

The difference between distrust and mistrust is subtle. Sometimes they are used in common parlance as if they were synonymous or interchangeable. However, they are not. The subtle difference in definition matters. Distrust is used more frequently in the context where the basis for removing or refusing trust has been established or decided. Mistrust is used when there is still uncertainty about whether trust is justified: the suspicion is there but the decision has not yet been made. The concept of mistrust captures this essential ingredient: uncertainty.

If trust is defined as a firm belief in the reliability, honesty, strength or ability of someone or something and mistrust is defined as uncertainty about those features of the person or thing, then it is interesting how trust comes about and, more particularly, what happens when uncertainty is aroused. From a social psychological perspective, trusting someone or something can be viewed as a process of evaluation. This process is not necessarily based on facts, reason or logic. It may also be based on habits, beliefs or emotions and upon the broader purposes or needs of the evaluator. This process is embedded in and influenced by its social context. What constitutes being worthy of trust is socially negotiated and varies across cultures and over time. Societal institutions (professions, religions, political parties etc.), besides deciding who and what they will trust themselves, have a pivotal role in erecting the framework used for trust evaluation by others. The individual evaluates trust in terms determined by norms and expectations established by her or his group memberships, history and future objectives.

At its most basic, the trusting process might be argued to involve three logically possible outcomes: trust, distrust or mistrust. In reality, the process is not so simple. Judging trustworthiness involves ongoing cognitive and emotional activity that may entail in quick succession (and in any order) mistrust, distrust and trust but will not necessarily produce a single stable outcome. The stream of incoming information will shift the needle back and forth on the trust barometer. Illustrations from what happens in friendships and romance are common. A partner is totally trusted, then some incident occurs (e.g. discovering s/he is meeting someone secretly) and suspicions begin, mistrust emerges, and then the suspicions are independently corroborated, resulting in confirmed distrust. This direction of movement from trust to distrust is rather more common and easier to envisage than the reverse. However, it does happen. Consider how evaluations of politicians can change. A candidate during a political election campaign promises to improve national health services, but her past performance indicates that this promise will not be kept. Distrust would be a common response. However, in the run up to the election, she explains her plans in detail and significant health practitioners argue that the strategy could work. The assumption that she must be distrusted may be displaced by doubt and suspicions. Mistrust of her replaces distrust. Within months of her election, she introduces legislation and budgetary allocations that can deliver her planned reforms. She has lived up to her promises. Mistrust gives way to, at least, temporary, probationary trust. This illustration immediately suggests that the move from distrust to trust may be more likely to be conditional.

Both trust and distrust may be temporary resting places in the trusting process. Mistrust is less a resting place and more a state of unrest, characterised by suspicion, doubt and ambivalence, and, sometimes, anxiety or fear. It is typified by being uncertain about what to believe. However, mistrust is more than just a matter of uncertain belief, it is typically linked to an emotional state. The emotion can be anxiety, or fear, or anger, or hatred. This is not an exhaustive list of affect that accompanies mistrust, what they have in common is that they are all what would be called ‘negative’ emotions in most societies. The subjective uncertainty that mistrust involves and its emotional concomitants would in many contexts (though not all, as we see later in this chapter) result in it being regarded as undesirable. Of course, just because it has its downsides does not mean that it has no advantages. Mistrust can be a strong pillar in self-protection, and we will come back to that later.

Mistrust can be a situationally specific response to a particular piece of information or person, like in the case of the person who suspects a partner of having an affair because evidence is discovered. But it can also be a chronic state. The individual may be habitually suspicious, doubtful, ambivalent, lacking in conviction, anxious and sceptical. At this level, mistrust is a cognitive and emotional trait of the person, having stability over time. Erikson (1963), in his theory of psychosocial development, argued that experiencing mistrust very early (birth to 12–18 months) in life shapes the subsequent personality. Mistrust can also be a preferred and regularly deployed coping strategy for dealing with threats to identity, acting as the basis for effective denial of evidence that would otherwise be damaging to self-efficacy, self-esteem, continuity or distinctiveness (Breakwell, 2015a). It is interesting that viewed, in this light, mistrust may be less involved in precipitating a search for the resolution of uncertainty and more about allowing uncertainty to remain because it acts as a defence against what might be understood or known should doubt be eliminated. These issues are addressed further later.

Mistrust is not just an individual state, trait or coping strategy. Just as some societies are said to be based on the presumption of trust, others are depicted as based on mistrust. Ethnographers have described societies dominated by cultures of mistrust. In early studies, Banfield (1958) characterised them as ‘backward’ plagued by solitude, anomie and pitiless mutual predation. More recently, Carey (2017) studying contemporary European communities (e.g. the Ukraine) where mistrust is considered to be widespread has argued that it does not need to be corrosive and can have utility. Simmel (1950: 318–19) describes trust as ‘a hypothesis regarding future behaviour, a hypothesis certain enough to serve as a basis for practical conduct’. Carey suggests the same is true of mistrust – ‘it is an alternative hypothesis and one that gives rise to social forms of its own’ influencing practices of communication, co-operation and politics (p. 3). Cultures adapted to pervasive mistrust will deal with novel uncertainty differently to those founded on assumptions of trust. Obviously, this begs the question: if we now live in an age of societal uncertainty (as Galbraith, 1977, claimed), are we already a culture of pervasive mistrust? We will return to this question.

Why Mistrust?

There are two sorts of answer to the question: why mistrust? The first describes the circumstances when mistrust appears. The second describes the purposes mistrust serves.

The circumstances capable of sowing or germinating the seeds of mistrust are myriad. Most cluster into three identifiable types:

• unfulfilled expectations
• being warned
• history repeats

The cluster involving unfulfilled expectations is possibly the most common. When people or things fail to behave in the way you expect, mistrust can grow. It is most likely if you consider the breach of expectations to be a bad thing – either by failing to do something or by doing something. Nice things that challenge expectations tend to be less fertile ground for mistrust – though not always. Even things that are intrinsically nice that are unexpected may raise suspicion (such as the gift given without apparent rationale). Why are our expectations about the behaviour, thoughts and feelings of others so important? They are important primarily because they are fundamental to our capacity to predict and anticipate the future. They are part of how we plan what we should do. When our expectations are met we are more likely to feel secure and in control – even when we are expecting bad things. Correctly anticipating the bad thing may allow us to deal with it more effectively when it arrives. Even when anticipation does not allow us to handle the bad thing better, we can still feel good about having been right! People or things that undermine our confidence in this ability to predict because they do not fulfil expectations are natural candidates for mistrust.

The cluster involving being warned is wide-ranging. Being told that we should mistrust someone or something is pretty much a daily occurrence. We can be told we should mistrust a specific individual or particular thing. We can be told that we should mistrust a whole category of people or objects. We can even be told that we should just mistrust everyone and everything. These warnings may be influential in some respect or they may fall on deaf ears. That depends on many factors. For instance, it depends who gives the warning; how, when and where they give it; and, especially, on the individual they give it to. Mistrust instigated in this way is particularly interesting. It is not a direct product of someone’s personal observations and evaluations of events. The evidence, at least initially, is second-hand, a social product. Complex social psychological processes direct mistrust that has been stimulated in this way. Some of these are described later in this chapter – they concern identity processes and social representations.

The cluster involving history repeats revolves around generalisation and habit. People use many shortcuts when interpreting information. They generalise from one experience to another, allowing themselves to come to conclusions about what is happening faster. They use what they know has happened in the past to interpret the present. If novel experiences echo a previous pattern, generalisation offers a pre-packaged interpretation of their meaning. Mistrust in a new person or thing can be triggered when generalisation processes tie them to an earlier experience of mistrust. For generalisation to happen there needs to be some perceived – not necessarily objective – similarity between the earlier and the new experiences. Habit will also play a part in history repeating itself. Individuals may repeatedly place themselves in the same type of situation – it is their habit. They do this for all sorts of reasons that we will not examine here but come back to them later. The point is that some people habitually find themselves in situations where they feel mistrust – either that they are mistrusted by others or that they mistrust others. Mistrust itself becomes a habit – something that is practised regularly and hard to give up.

These clusters of circumstance will be revisited later, particularly in considering the effects of rumour, gossip, disinformation and conspiracy theories, and then some of the social psychological theories that explain what happens are presented. In examining the explanations for what is underlying the emergence of mistrust when these circumstances occur, answers to the second meaning of the question ‘why mistrust?’ will become evident as we start to address what mistrust achieves and what purposes it serves. But first, as mistrust is a dynamic psychological process, to understand how it works it will be important to understand it within appropriate theoretical frameworks.

Identity Processes and Social Representations

While numerous hypotheses about the manifestations of mistrust will be described later, throughout this book two main social psychological theoretical frameworks are used to show how mistrust processes in general can be understood. These are Identity Process Theory (IPT) (Breakwell, 1983, 1992, 1996, 2014a; 2015a; Jaspal & Breakwell, 2014) and Social Representations Theory (SRT) (Breakwell, 2001a, 2011, 2015b; Breakwell & Canter, 1993; Moscovici, 1988; 2001; Jodelet, 2008; Sammut et al., 2015). These two theories are chosen in preference to others for a number of reasons. Neither are micro-models built specifically to explain mistrust. They are broad theories used to explain a wide range of psychological and societal phenomena. Used in conjunction, they provide a comprehensive interpretation of the intra-psychic, interpersonal and societal dynamics of mistrust. Both these theories are primarily concerned with how people adapt to change and uncertainty. Such adaptation is a core feature of mistrust. Since IPT and SRT are used throughout the book, they are each described here in outline and, where needed, greater detail is presented later.

Moscovici (1988), in SRT, described how people give meaning to novel social realities, things and situations that they have not seen before and are unexpected. Moscovici showed how ‘anchoring’ and ‘objectification’ processes come into play when a community is facing something new. These processes involve social communication and negotiation that give meaning to what is new (Abric, 1996) and often what is newly understood to have been present but previously unknown (Marková, 2012). Both processes contextualise the novel and by doing so make it part of an intelligible set of meanings: anchoring ascribes meaning to a new phenomenon by linking it to pre-extant understandings or explanations; objectification gives it substance by associating it with material examples, translating innovative ideas in terms of palpable things. New or changed phenomena thus become manageable by being reconceptualised, normalised or identified within the pre-existing system of societal understandings – often by reference to existing social representations of comparable phenomena. For instance, cybercrime, which came to public attention as online activities grew, is now recognised as a major societal risk, yet it is an amorphous concept that spans an enormous range of activities. Making the phenomenon meaningful to a public unversed in the technicalities of digital systems has required the dev...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• About the Author
• Preface
• Chapter 1 The Nature of Mistrust
• Chapter 2 Risk and Mistrust
• Chapter 3 Shared Uncertainty
• Chapter 4 Identity, Emotions and Mistrust
• Chapter 5 Images of the Mistrusted
• Chapter 6 Leadership and Mistrust
• Chapter 7 Communication Channels for Inciting Mistrust
• Chapter 8 Weaponising Mistrust: Disinformation and Propaganda
• Chapter 9 Conspiracy Theories
• Chapter 10 Modelling Mistrust Processes
• References
• Index