The Great Untrusting

It can feel like distrust is everywhere. Supermarket staff stand sentry at self-checkouts. We scan products; they scan us. Mirrors have multiplied. Cameras proliferate. Banks, perhaps understandably, might presume deception before offering help. To deter patients from gaming the system many UK health centres require a written application for a doctor’s appointment. Helplines play automated messages implying those unable to help themselves are pains not patrons.

Many of life’s interactions now come accompanied with an air of distrust. These growing frictions are a two-way street and reflect a broader trend across Western societies. People increasingly believe that institutions and organisations are inept, self-serving or both. As for the politicians, trust has never been lower. Surveys suggest barely one in five citizens believe political leaders to be competent and honest. All this has profound implications for how we connect with, communicate, and seek to influence and drive change.

From lo-trust to no-trust.

It used to be that there were two kinds of people: high-trusters, who were prepared to trust until given a reason not to, and low-trusters, who were open to trusting those who earned it. Both positions, however different, offered a workable foundation for connection and exchange.

Not anymore.

Research from MHP Group (a UK-based public affairs and communications firm) shows how a third of adults now identify as Super-Distrusters. Their starting point is not high-trust or low-trust. They distrust everything. Their numbers are growing.

Distrust is not a marginal phenomenon. Nor it is solely a British one. It is widespread, cultural and systemic. Super-Distrusters also defy obvious caricatures and lazy stereotypes. They are not just right-wing, uneducated NIMBYs. Super-Distrusters cut across left and right, young and old, affluent and less so. Sure, they can be found in the deprived suburbs of Ohio or Hull—but they are just as likely to be sipping matcha in Brooklyn or tapping away in Shoreditch co-working spaces.

It is tempting to explain away the distrusters as people who have been “pulled” into the orbit of provocateurs, conspiracists and malign online influencers. Tempting, but wrong. Many have been pushed. Pushed by institutions that dismiss their legitimate concerns as petty complaints; by politicians who view their scepticism as ignorance; and by businesses whose interactions with them feel increasingly one-sided.

Many Super-Distrusters believe ‘the system’ sees them as the problem. Few things erode trust faster than being patronised by those who claim to know better.

For leaders and communicators, the implications are significant. Persuasion works best when audiences assume the communicator is broadly capable, honest and aligned with their interests. Those assumptions can no longer be relied upon. Messengers and their messages are now examined not only for coherence but motive. ‘What aren’t they telling me?’ ‘Where’s the trick?’

Part of the challenge for today’s leaders and communicators is recognising what trust is. It is often seen as a moral attribute, a social nicety and, ultimately, about truth. Not necessarily so. Trust is more akin to a bet. The extent to which we feel confident about predicting someone else’s future actions determines our trust in them. People tend to trust to the extent they feel confident a communicator possesses not only competence but integrity and benevolence too. Yet these latter two qualities are in decline. In an increasingly distrusting world, logic alone will never suffice. As one observer at the COP30 summit in Belém noted, “bringing facts to a fight about feelings” never works.

Influence and persuasion are crucial to effective leadership and communication. Yet neither can thrive on a foundation of distrust. Work needs to be done to rebuild the foundations of trust in society and business. Three ideas seem important.

First, we mustn’t forget that trust is a contact sport. It flows through human connection, not automation. AI can accelerate transactions and carry out tasks but it cannot look you in the eye, smile warmly and shake you by the hand. At least, not yet.

Second, governments, institutions and firms must stop problematising the public. People want to be heard, not corrected. To dismiss their legitimate scepticism is to entrench it further.

Third, we should realise that trust is a gift and leaders need to be the first movers. Transparency should be offered before it is demanded; assistance provided before it is requested. The social contract of trust is steeped in reciprocity: give and take. Note the order. Giving comes before taking. We ignore this at our peril.

Distrust is fast becoming one of the defining issues of our age. Influence and persuasion remain the defining skills needed to succeed. For influence and persuasion to thrive leaders and communicators need to start work restoring the conditions that make persuasion and change possible. They need to address the Great Untrusting.

For those who get it right, the opportunities will be significant for an important reason. In a world of distrust, those seen as comparatively trusted stand to reap from the resulting differentiation.

Steve Martin is a Royal Society-nominated author and leading voice on the psychology of influence, persuasion and change. He is Chief Executive Officer of Influence at Work and Faculty Director of Behavioral Science at Columbia Business School, (Exec. Ed.).