Comment by xpe

People come at this with all kinds of life experience. The above notion of trust to me is quaint and simplistic. I suggest another way to frame trust as a more open ended question:

    To what degree do I predict another person/org will give me what I need and why?

This shifts "trust" away from all or nothing and it gets me thinking about things like "what are the moving parts?" and "what are the incentives" and "what is my plan B?".

In my life experience, looking back, when I've found myself swinging from "high trust" to "low trust" the change was usually rooted in my expectations; it was usually rooted in me having a naive understanding of the world that was rudely shattered.

Will you force trust to be a bit? Or can you admit a probability distribution? Bits (true/false or yes/no or trust/don't trust) thrash wildly. Bayesians update incrementally: this is (a) more pleasant; (b) more correct; (c) more curious; (d) easier to compare notes with others.