The Science of Self-Trust, and Why It Comes Before Trusting Anyone Else

Trust is usually described as something that happens between two people. The research tells a different story. Long before you can accurately judge whether someone else deserves your trust, you need a working relationship with your own judgment, and that relationship turns out to be considerably more foundational, and considerably more fragile, than most people assume.

Trust starts as a stage of development, not a decision

Psychologist Erik Erikson identified trust versus mistrust as the very first psychosocial stage of human development, unfolding in the first year of life, well before language or reasoning arrive to help. An infant whose needs are met consistently develops a basic sense that the world, and by extension itself, can be relied upon. One whose needs are met unpredictably develops the opposite. This is not simply about learning to trust caregivers. It becomes the earliest template for whether you expect your own signals, hunger, discomfort, distress, to actually get a reliable response, which is the first draft of self-trust before you have any concept of the word.