What we don't understand about trust
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0:00 - 0:02So I'm going to talk about trust,
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0:02 - 0:04and I'm going to start by reminding you
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0:04 - 0:09of the standard views that people have about trust.
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0:09 - 0:11I think these are so commonplace,
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0:11 - 0:13they've become clichés of our society.
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0:13 - 0:15And I think there are three.
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0:15 - 0:20One's a claim: there has been a great decline in trust,
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0:20 - 0:22very widely believed.
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0:22 - 0:26The second is an aim: we should have more trust.
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0:26 - 0:32And the third is a task: we should rebuild trust.
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0:32 - 0:36I think that the claim, the aim and the task
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0:36 - 0:38are all misconceived.
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0:38 - 0:40So what I'm going to try to tell you today
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0:40 - 0:45is a different story about a claim, an aim and a task
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0:45 - 0:49which I think give one quite a lot better purchase on the matter.
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0:49 - 0:54First the claim: Why do people think trust has declined?
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0:54 - 0:58And if I really think about it on the basis of my own evidence,
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0:58 - 1:00I don't know the answer.
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1:00 - 1:03I'm inclined to think it may have declined
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1:03 - 1:07in some activities or some institutions
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1:07 - 1:09and it might have grown in others.
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1:09 - 1:11I don't have an overview.
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1:11 - 1:15But, of course, I can look at the opinion polls,
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1:15 - 1:17and the opinion polls are supposedly
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1:17 - 1:21the source of a belief that trust has declined.
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1:21 - 1:25When you actually look at opinion polls across time,
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1:25 - 1:27there's not much evidence for that.
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1:27 - 1:30That's to say, the people who were mistrusted
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1:30 - 1:3120 years ago,
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1:31 - 1:36principally journalists and politicians, are still mistrusted.
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1:36 - 1:39And the people who were highly trusted 20 years ago
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1:39 - 1:43are still rather highly trusted: judges, nurses.
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1:43 - 1:45The rest of us are in between,
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1:45 - 1:48and by the way, the average person in the street
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1:48 - 1:50is almost exactly midway.
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1:50 - 1:52But is that good evidence?
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1:52 - 1:56What opinion polls record is, of course, opinions.
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1:56 - 1:58What else can they record?
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1:58 - 2:01So they're looking at the generic attitudes
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2:01 - 2:05that people report when you ask them certain questions.
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2:05 - 2:09Do you trust politicians? Do you trust teachers?
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2:09 - 2:12Now if somebody said to you, "Do you trust greengrocers?
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2:12 - 2:14Do you trust fishmongers?
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2:14 - 2:17Do you trust elementary school teachers?"
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2:17 - 2:20you would probably begin by saying, "To do what?"
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2:20 - 2:24And that would be a perfectly sensible response.
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2:24 - 2:29And you might say, when you understood the answer to that,
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2:29 - 2:32"Well, I trust some of them, but not others."
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2:32 - 2:34That's a perfectly rational thing.
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2:34 - 2:37In short, in our real lives,
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2:37 - 2:41we seek to place trust in a differentiated way.
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2:41 - 2:44We don't make an assumption that the level of trust
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2:44 - 2:48that we will have in every instance of a certain type
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2:48 - 2:52of official or office-holder or type of person
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2:52 - 2:54is going to be uniform.
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2:54 - 2:57I might, for example, say that I certainly trust
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2:57 - 3:00a certain elementary school teacher I know
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3:00 - 3:03to teach the reception class to read,
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3:03 - 3:06but in no way to drive the school minibus.
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3:06 - 3:09I might, after all, know that she wasn't a good driver.
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3:09 - 3:13I might trust my most loquacious friend
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3:13 - 3:15to keep a conversation going
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3:15 - 3:24but not -- but perhaps not to keep a secret.
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3:24 - 3:26Simple.
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3:26 - 3:30So if we've got those evidence in our ordinary lives
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3:30 - 3:33of the way that trust is differentiated,
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3:33 - 3:36why do we sort of drop all that intelligence
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3:36 - 3:39when we think about trust more abstractly?
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3:39 - 3:42I think the polls are very bad guides
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3:42 - 3:45to the level of trust that actually exists,
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3:45 - 3:49because they try to obliterate the good judgment
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3:49 - 3:52that goes into placing trust.
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3:52 - 3:54Secondly, what about the aim?
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3:54 - 3:57The aim is to have more trust.
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3:57 - 4:00Well frankly, I think that's a stupid aim.
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4:00 - 4:02It's not what I would aim at.
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4:02 - 4:06I would aim to have more trust in the trustworthy
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4:06 - 4:09but not in the untrustworthy.
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4:09 - 4:15In fact, I aim positively to try not to trust the untrustworthy.
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4:15 - 4:19And I think, of those people who, for example,
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4:19 - 4:24placed their savings with the very aptly named Mr. Madoff,
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4:24 - 4:26who then made off with them,
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4:26 - 4:29and I think of them, and I think, well, yes,
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4:29 - 4:30too much trust.
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4:30 - 4:34More trust is not an intelligent aim in this life.
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4:34 - 4:38Intelligently placed and intelligently refused trust
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4:38 - 4:41is the proper aim.
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4:41 - 4:44Well once one says that, one says, yeah, okay,
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4:44 - 4:47that means that what matters in the first place
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4:47 - 4:51is not trust but trustworthiness.
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4:51 - 4:53It's judging how trustworthy people are
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4:53 - 4:55in particular respects.
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4:55 - 4:59And I think that judgment requires us to look at three things.
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4:59 - 5:04Are they competent? Are they honest? Are they reliable?
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5:04 - 5:06And if we find that a person is competent
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5:06 - 5:08in the relevant matters,
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5:08 - 5:10and reliable and honest,
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5:10 - 5:12we'll have a pretty good reason to trust them,
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5:12 - 5:14because they'll be trustworthy.
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5:14 - 5:18But if, on the other hand, they're unreliable, we might not.
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5:18 - 5:20I have friends who are competent and honest,
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5:20 - 5:22but I would not trust them to post a letter,
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5:22 - 5:24because they're forgetful.
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5:24 - 5:27I have friends who are very confident
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5:27 - 5:29they can do certain things,
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5:29 - 5:34but I realize that they overestimate their own competence.
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5:34 - 5:36And I'm very glad to say, I don't think I have many friends
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5:36 - 5:40who are competent and reliable but extremely dishonest.
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5:40 - 5:41(Laughter)
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5:41 - 5:44If so, I haven't yet spotted it.
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5:44 - 5:46But that's what we're looking for:
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5:46 - 5:49trustworthiness before trust.
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5:49 - 5:50Trust is the response.
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5:50 - 5:53Trustworthiness is what we have to judge.
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5:53 - 5:54And, of course, it's difficult.
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5:54 - 5:58Across the last few decades, we've tried to construct
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5:58 - 6:01systems of accountability for all sorts of institutions
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6:01 - 6:03and professionals and officials and so on
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6:03 - 6:08that will make it easier for us to judge their trustworthiness.
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6:08 - 6:11A lot of these systems have the converse effect.
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6:11 - 6:13They don't work as they're supposed to.
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6:13 - 6:17I remember I was talking with a midwife who said,
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6:17 - 6:20"Well, you see, the problem is it takes longer
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6:20 - 6:23to do the paperwork than to deliver the baby."
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6:23 - 6:27And all over our public life, our institutional life,
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6:27 - 6:29we find that problem,
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6:29 - 6:31that the system of accountability
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6:31 - 6:34that is meant to secure trustworthiness
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6:34 - 6:36and evidence of trustworthiness
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6:36 - 6:38is actually doing the opposite.
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6:38 - 6:43It is distracting people who have to do difficult tasks,
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6:43 - 6:45like midwives, from doing them
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6:45 - 6:48by requiring them to tick the boxes, as we say.
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6:48 - 6:51You can all give your own examples there.
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6:51 - 6:53So so much for the aim.
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6:53 - 6:56The aim, I think, is more trustworthiness,
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6:56 - 6:58and that is going to be different
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6:58 - 7:00if we are trying to be trustworthy
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7:00 - 7:03and communicate our trustworthiness to other people,
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7:03 - 7:06and if we are trying to judge whether other people
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7:06 - 7:09or office-holders or politicians are trustworthy.
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7:09 - 7:13It's not easy. It is judgment, and simple reaction,
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7:13 - 7:18attitudes, don't do adequately here.
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7:18 - 7:22Now thirdly, the task.
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7:22 - 7:25Calling the task rebuilding trust, I think,
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7:25 - 7:27also gets things backwards.
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7:27 - 7:32It suggests that you and I should rebuild trust.
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7:32 - 7:34Well, we can do that for ourselves.
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7:34 - 7:37We can rebuild a bit of trustworthiness.
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7:37 - 7:40We can do it two people together trying to improve trust.
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7:40 - 7:44But trust, in the end, is distinctive
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7:44 - 7:46because it's given by other people.
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7:46 - 7:49You can't rebuild what other people give you.
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7:49 - 7:52You have to give them the basis
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7:52 - 7:55for giving you their trust.
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7:55 - 7:59So you have to, I think, be trustworthy.
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7:59 - 8:01And that, of course, is because you can't fool
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8:01 - 8:05all of the people all of the time, usually.
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8:05 - 8:09But you also have to provide usable evidence
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8:09 - 8:11that you are trustworthy.
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8:11 - 8:12How to do it?
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8:12 - 8:15Well every day, all over the place, it's being done
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8:15 - 8:18by ordinary people, by officials, by institutions,
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8:18 - 8:20quite effectively.
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8:20 - 8:24Let me give you a simple commercial example.
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8:24 - 8:28The shop where I buy my socks says I may take them back,
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8:28 - 8:30and they don't ask any questions.
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8:30 - 8:32They take them back and give me the money
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8:32 - 8:34or give me the pair of socks of the color I wanted.
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8:34 - 8:37That's super. I trust them
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8:37 - 8:40because they have made themselves vulnerable to me.
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8:40 - 8:42I think there's a big lesson in that.
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8:42 - 8:45If you make yourself vulnerable to the other party,
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8:45 - 8:49then that is very good evidence that you are trustworthy
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8:49 - 8:52and you have confidence in what you are saying.
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8:52 - 8:54So in the end, I think what we are aiming for
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8:54 - 8:58is not very difficult to discern.
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8:58 - 9:02It is relationships in which people are trustworthy
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9:02 - 9:06and can judge when and how the other person
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9:06 - 9:07is trustworthy.
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9:07 - 9:11So the moral of all this is,
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9:11 - 9:14we need to think much less about trust,
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9:14 - 9:17let alone about attitudes of trust
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9:17 - 9:21detected or mis-detected by opinion polls,
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9:21 - 9:24much more about being trustworthy,
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9:24 - 9:28and how you give people adequate, useful
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9:28 - 9:30and simple evidence that you're trustworthy.
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9:30 - 9:31Thanks.
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9:31 - 9:34(Applause)
- Title:
- What we don't understand about trust
- Speaker:
- Onora O'Neill
- Description:
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Trust is on the decline, and we need to rebuild it. That’s a commonly heard suggestion for making a better world … but, says philosopher Onora O’Neill, we don’t really understand what we're suggesting. She flips the question, showing us that our three most common ideas about trust are actually misdirected. (Filmed at TEDxHousesofParliament.)
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 09:50
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for What we don't understand about trust | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for What we don't understand about trust | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for What we don't understand about trust | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for What we don't understand about trust | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for What we don't understand about trust | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for What we don't understand about trust | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for What we don't understand about trust | ||
Joseph Geni edited English subtitles for What we don't understand about trust |