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I’m a pretty trusting person. Just the way I am. I know people will lie and cheat, but I will always give the benefit of the doubt. I am a realistic optimist in that sense.
So this academic paper from a few years back caught my eye particularly in the world of distrust we seemingly live in now. Are we naturally trustworthy or are we naturally distrustful?
This is the question these researchers wanted to answer and so turned to twins to answer this question.
What did their analysis find?
First off, they found that trust and distrust can be considered separate constructs which may sound strange at first glance i.e. you can be low on distrust but also low on trust, it doesn’t necessarily follow that if you are low on distrust you will be high on trust.
Secondly, that socialization process either in childhood and in adult life contribute more to distrust than trust.
Thirdly, that trust is in part heritable, passed on in our genes from our parents. If you…
