Create Lasting Trust

SEND THE SIGNALS THAT BUILD INTEGRITY

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

—THOMAS JEFFERSON

No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar.

—ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Micca worked very hard. She often put in sixty-to eighty-hour work-weeks as the clinic manager at a new health care start-up company, and on the surface she appeared to be a team player. Over time, however, her frequent conflicts with the employees she supervised caused concern among the owners. When they called in an outside consultant it was discovered that she was, in fact, not following the company’s policies and procedures and she lied about her compliance. With her history of hard work, the owners gave her another chance. But in their minds she had become associated with being unreliable and less than honest. All of her behaviors were filtered through these negative assumptions, and the smallest things, including how she ordered office supplies, came into question. It was not a good situation and the constant stress led to Micca taking time off from the company owing to depression and anxiety.

I saw Micca when she first went out on stress leave. She had virtually no insight into her own contribution to the problems she faced. She believed she was a victim of unfair management practices. Her brain scan indicated very low prefrontal cortex activity. The prefrontal cortex, the brain’s supervisor, is also involved in our sense of self and affects our ability to read our own behavior. Having low prefrontal cortex activity was consistent with her conflict-seeking nature, her impulsive inability to follow directions from the owners, and her lying, despite working long hours and truly wanting to be successful at her job. Through therapy, supplements, and medication I was able to balance her prefrontal cortex, and when she returned to work her behavior was much more consistent. Four years later she remains with the company and has been promoted twice. Over time, with consistent behavior, the trust with the company owners was restored. Balancing her brain changed her life.

Ultimately, trust and integrity are brain functions. These critical characteristics of success stem from honesty and consistent behavior, which are also brain functions. How you behave day to day makes a lasting impression or legacy in the brains of other people. If you behave in a consistent, honest, predictable way, people will tend to trust you. When you behave erratically or you lie, people tend not to trust you, and their brains remember you as untrustworthy. The brain actually develops nerve cell networks tagged with the names of the people in your life who become connected with descriptors such as honest, lying, lifesaving, trustworthy, hardworking, lazy, dependable, unreliable, and so on. To be successful in any area of life, we need other people, and it is best when they have us labeled in their brains as trustworthy and dependable.

How the Brain Builds Trust

Developing trust involves the brains of both the sender and the receiver. Sending consistent, honest, reliable messages is the first part of the equation of trust. As important is the ability to receive messages in a consistent, honest, and reliable way, without filters that distort incoming information. To send and receive trustworthy signals that build integrity, a person’s brain needs to work right. Let’s revisit five of the six brain systems we have previously discussed and see how they can impact trustworthy and dependable behavior. For the sender and receiver to transmit and receive trustworthy messages that breed integrity each of these systems need to be healthy. A problem in any one of them can short-circuit trust. Let’s look at each of these systems in more detail to see how they build and erode trust.

PREFRONTAL CORTEX—CEO

I think of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) as the major system that breeds trust, honesty, and integrity. When the PFC works right, people tend to be thoughtful, truthful, and goal oriented. They can effectively supervise their words and deeds. They are able to think before they say things and tend to do things that effect their goals in a positive way. A healthy PFC helps inhibit behavior and first impulses. All of us, at one point or another, have hurtful thoughts cross our mind about our partner (e.g., “He looks like he is gaining a little weight” or “She has a few more wrinkles”) that are not helpful to just blurt out. Inhibiting these thoughts so they don’t just escape your mouth helps the relationship stay on an even track. People with a healthy PFC also tend to learn from their mistakes and follow through on commitments. They are generally able to express their feelings and have good communication. And they tend to dislike conflict, tension, and turmoil. Healthy PFC activity is associated with consistent, thoughtful behavior.

When there are problems in the PFC people tend to be impulsive, often causing serious erosion of trust in relationships. They tend to live in the moment and have trouble delaying gratification. This “I want it now” mind-set is a dangerous breeding ground for affairs, lying, and stealing. They also have trouble listening and tend to be easily distracted, so there is often miscommunication. In addition, many people with PFC problems have an unconscious tendency to be conflict seeking or to look for problems when none exist. I call this tendency the game of “let’s have a problem.” This behavior pushes people away and leaves them off balance in a relationship they cannot trust. PFC problems cause inconsistent, unreliable, and often dishonest behavior that breeds mistrust.

ANTERIOR CINGULATE GYRUS—GEAR SHIFTER

The anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG) is the brain’s gear shifter. It is involved with shifting attention from task to task or idea to idea. It helps people be flexible, so they can go with the flow, and it is also involved in cooperation and helps people get outside of themselves. In addition, it is the part of the brain that helps with error detection. For example, if you walk in a room and something is out of place, this is the part of the brain that notifies you about it.

People with high activity in the ACG, usually owing to lower levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, have a high sense of fairness and right and wrong. They can be very loyal and want to do things perfectly. They do not tend to lie but can be fairly rigid in their beliefs. Over time, however, too much activity in this system can erode trust because it can cause people to get stuck on negative thoughts, behaviors, and old hurts. If you hurt them, they may never forget it and punish you for years with their grudge holding. They may nag their partners about events from the past, and they may get stuck in their own position and become rigid, oppositional, or argumentative. In addition, they may become micromanagers at home or work, which pushes others away. They often get easily upset when things do not go their way, so on the surface they appear selfish. Sometimes they are viewed by their spouses or employees as controlling, because things have to be their way.

DEEP LIMBIC SYSTEM—MOOD AND BONDING

The deep limbic system (DLS) sets a person’s emotional tone. When the DLS is less active, there is generally a positive, more hopeful state of mind. When it is heated up, or overactive, negativity and depression can take over. Because of this emotional shading, the DLS provides the filter through which you interpret the events of the day; it tags or colors events, depending on the emotional state of mind. Trust is intimately involved in how we interpret what happens to us. All events have multiple possible interpretations. For example, if your spouse has an affair, you can totally blame her for the indiscretion and file for divorce, or you can ask yourself if your behavior contributed to the problem and seek solutions. How your limbic brain works will help determine how you interpret what happens to you. If it is set to negative, you will have a hard time trusting anyone. If it is set to positive you may trust people you shouldn’t. As in all brain systems, balance is needed.

BASAL GANGLIA—ANXIETY AND MOTIVATION

When the basal ganglia (BG) system functions properly people tend to be calm, relaxed, and more trusting. They tend to predict the best and, in general, see a positive future. Trust is easier for them. They are able to deal with conflict in an effective way, which breeds trust and honesty. They can speak the truth. Overactivity in the BG results in a tendency toward anxiety, fear, insecurity, and placating others. They tend to focus on the negative and what can go wrong in a situation. They filter information through fear and they are less likely to give others the benefit of the doubt. Most of their memories are filled with anxiety or fear. They tend to wear out people by the constant fear they project. People with high BG activity have trouble trusting but can also appear clingy and insecure. When the BG work too hard, people tend to struggle with conflict avoidant behavior. Anything that reminds them of a worry (such as confronting an employee who is not doing a good job) produces anxiety, and high BG people tend to avoid it because it makes them feel uncomfortable.

TEMPORAL LOBES—PERCEPTION AND MEMORY

The temporal lobes (TLs) are involved with language (hearing and reading), reading social cues, getting memories into long-term storage, mood stability, and temper control. Problems in the temporal lobes can lead to miscommunication, misreading social cues, memory lapses, moodiness, and temper issues—all traits that erode trust. The TLs encode new information and facilitate memory. It is one of the areas first damaged by Alzheimer’s disease. Paranoia and suspiciousness are common in Alzheimer’s disease and other TL disorders because people do not process information fully.

Strong emotions facilitate memory. One of the biggest trust builders is the ability to navigate emotionally hard times successfully. Going through an illness, financial hardship, or work stress effectively allows another person to know you will be there for him or her during the tough times, and positive experience builds long-term trust circuits in the brain. On the other hand, negative intense emotional experiences, such as growing up in an abusive home or being robbed or raped, often changes the function in the TLs and significantly erodes a person’s ability to trust. Trust is based on accurate perception, and if the TLs do not perceive incoming information properly or if memory is distorted, trust is likely to be lacking.

Symphony of Mistrust

Problems in any one area of the brain can challenge trust, but when there are multiple troubled areas trust becomes even harder. For example, it is not uncommon for patients to see me who have problems in two, three, four, or even five systems. They may be impulsive and unpredictable (low PFC activity), hold on to hurts from the past (high ACG activity), depressed and negative (high DLS activity), anxious and insecure (high BG activity) and do not perceive or remember information accurately (low TL activity). Treating each of these systems is important to getting people well and boosting their ability to trust (see chapter 4 for a summary of problems and treatments for each of these systems).

Oxytocin and the Chemistry of Trust

Interestingly, certain chemicals, found everywhere in the brain, are also involved with trust, especially the bonding hormone oxytocin. In a landmark study by Michael Kosfeld and colleagues from Switzerland, intranasal oxytocin was found to increase trust. Men who inhaled a nasal spray spiked with oxytocin gave more money to partners in a risky investment game than did men who sniffed a spray containing a placebo. Previous studies of animals had suggested that oxytocin in the brain encourages long-term mating in pairs of adults and nurturing behaviors by mothers toward their offspring. Oxytocin fosters the trust needed for friendship, love, families, economic transactions, and political networks. According to the study’s authors, “Oxytocin specifically affects an individual’s willingness to accept social risks arising through interpersonal interactions.”

The scientists studied oxytocin’s influence on male college students playing an investment game. Each of fifty-eight men was paid a sum of money to participate in the experiment. The volunteers were paired up, and one man in each pair was randomly assigned to play the role of an investor and the other to play the role of a trustee. Each participant received tokens, valued with real money and redeemable at the end of the experiment. The investor in each pair decided how many tokens to cede to the trustee. Both participants, sitting face to face, knew that the experimenters would quadruple that investment. The trustee then determined whether to keep the entire enhanced pot or to give some portion of the proceeds, whatever amount seemed fair, to the investor. Among the investors who had inhaled oxytocin, about half gave all their tokens to trustees and most of the rest contributed a majority of their tokens. In contrast, only one fifth of investors who had inhaled a placebo spray forked over all their tokens and another one third parted with a majority of their tokens. The oxytocin influence is “a remarkable finding,” says neuroscientist Antonio Damasio of the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City in an editorial published with the research report. Damasio had previously argued that the hormone acts somewhat as a love potion. “It adds trust to the mix, for there is no love without trust,” he says.

Why Lie Detectors Do Not Work for the People Who Need Them Most

One of the reasons that traditional lie detectors do not work is that there is a certain percentage of the population that does not react emotionally when they lie, cheat, or steal. In a very real sense they are cold-blooded. They actually have less blood flow to the most thoughtful part of their brain, the PFC.

Lie detectors typically work by professionals observing how a person’s physiology responds to lying. Most people exhibit physical symptoms when they lie. Their bodies respond to the stress they feel when they think they will be found out. Immediately, their hearts beat faster as adrenaline bathes their system, their breathing becomes more shallow in response to feelings of panic, their hands become colder as blood flow becomes constricted, and their hands sweat and their muscles become tense. Examiners can see this pattern on the lie detector equipment and the liar is caught. This technology works nicely for most people. Most of us have brains that want to tell the truth, want to be trusted, and we feel guilty when we lie or when we think we will be caught. Our bodies respond to our thoughts and feelings. There is even new brain imaging lie detector equipment and companies springing up, such as No Lie MRI, to swear in court whether or not you are telling the truth. Not only does your body react to lies, your brain does as well. Whenever most people lie, their brain becomes overall much more active than when telling the truth. It really does take more out of you to lie than to tell the truth.

But the problem with lie detectors, including the latest brain imaging additions, is that there is a certain percentage of people who do not respond in the typical way to lying. Their brains and bodies do not respond with anxiety to the lies they tell. It is just routine for them. These people often have antisocial personality disorder, which is characterized by a long-standing pattern of disregard for the rights of others. They frequently break rules, inhabit prisons, and have constant relationship and work problems. They often get into fights. With little or no empathy, they may steal, destroy property, or manipulate or deceive others for their own selfish ends. They tend to be impulsive and lack forethought. Psychologist Adrienne Raine from the University of Southern California found that compared with a group of healthy men, the magnetic resonance imaging scans of the men with antisocial personality disorder showed decreased PFC volume. They are likely dealing with less access to the part of the brain that controls conscience, free will, right and wrong, and good and evil. A fascinating additional finding of Dr. Raine’s work was that people with antisocial personality disorder also had slower heart rates than the control group and decreased sweat gland activity. Lower heart rates and sweat gland activity are often associated with low anxiety states (your hands sweat and your heart races when you are anxious). Could this mean that people with this type of temperament do not have enough internal anxiety? Could the PFC be involved with appropriate anxiety? Intriguing questions. For example, most people feel anxious before they do something bad or risky. If I needed money and got the thought in my head to rob the local grocery store, my next thoughts would be filled with anxiety:

“It is wrong,” “I am better than that action,” “I don’t want to get caught,” “I don’t like institutional food,” and “I could lose my medical license” are just a few of the thoughts that might run through my head. The anxiety would prevent me from acting out on the bad thoughts. But what if, as Dr. Raine’s study suggests, I do not have enough anxiety and I get an evil thought in my head such as “Go rob the store”? With poor PFC activity, I am likely to rob the store without considering all of the consequences to my behavior. There is an interesting treatment implication from this work. Typically, psychiatrists try to help lessen a person’s anxiety. Maybe we have it backward for people with antisocial personality disorder—perhaps we should try to increase their anxiety. Perhaps that’s what spiritual leaders had in mind when they talk about hell, fire, and damnation. There is a certain percentage of us who need to be scared into behaving right, who need more anxiety, who need to know that there will be hell to pay for bad behavior.

So Whom Should You Trust?

The best predictor of behavior is behavior. How people have been acting is a likely indicator of how they will act, unless they do something meaningful to change. That is why once people see you as dishonest, disingenuous, unreliable, or lacking integrity, their brain is wired to keep that label for you until it learns otherwise. Our brains remember emotionally laden material, and when we see someone important as untrustworthy, it is often a very emotional event. When President George H. W. Bush reversed his campaign promise of no new taxes—“Read my lips, no new taxes”—many Americans felt betrayed, which was instrumental in costing him re election.

Over time, once the brain develops a reason to trust someone, new information can replace old ideas, as in the case of Micca, who was discussed at the beginning of the chapter. Adolescents are a great example of how the brain can learn to trust again. Many teens struggle with consistent behavior, and lose their parents’ trust. But over time, as their behavior becomes more consistent, usually when their PFC becomes more fully developed in their midtwenties, parents become more trusting. Over the years I have seen hundreds of teenagers struggling for independence. They want their parents to trust them, yet they consistently exhibit untrustworthy behavior. As we discuss their plight, I encourage them to articulate their goals, such as to be trusted and have more independence, and then act accordingly, despite the temptations of parties, easily available drugs, and friends who might lead them astray. Often the counseling is effective, especially when I can balance their brains. Sometimes it just takes time. Of course, it is possible to repair a bad reputation. Consider Muhammad Ali, who was hated by many in the 1960s for his refusal to sign up for the draft. In 1996 he was one of the most beloved sports figures in the world and carried the Olympic torch during the opening ceremonies of the games in Atlanta.

Let’s look deeper into applying this principle to your life. When interviewing people for a job position in your company, it is critical to know about their past jobs. Remember, the best predictor of current behavior is past behavior. You want to know what they excelled at, what, if anything, went wrong, and what other people thought of them. Many people have blinders to their own weaknesses, so talking with others can provide essential information. Background checks are a key component of good business. For example, if someone has had multiple jobs in a short period of time, likely they will only be with you for a short while. Sometimes our own excitement or needs cause us to override our PFC and make hasty decisions about who to invite into our businesses.

Impulsive decisions can also adversely affect our personal lives. Taking time to get to know someone and meeting her family and friends before we hop into bed with her is essential to protecting your heart, health, and wealth. Unfortunately, our society’s obsession with instant gratification causes many people to rush intimacy before really knowing the other person whose body and brain they are getting into. Besides the obvious health issues, when you make love to someone, the chemical oxytocin surges through our brains (500 percent in men after an orgasm), causing us to be more trusting, perhaps undeservedly so. I caution my patients to be careful and go slowly. Getting someone into your head may be a lot easier than getting him or her out.

Live for the Long Haul, Not Just the Moment

Think about your long-term goals. It is easy to cheat in the moment, whether it is cheating on your spouse, your boss, or your taxes. But think about how your behavior fits with your goals over time. What kind of character do you desire? Matching your behavior to your goals is a PFC function.

I once had lunch with a close friend who was having marital problems. I knew Chuck had ADD and was struggling at home in his relationships with his wife and children. As usual, Chuck was telling me about the turmoil. His wife was struggling with one of their daughters who was being defiant. Then all of a sudden his affect changed, his eyes brightened, and his tone became more excited and hushed. He told me about a woman he had recently met on an airplane. She was pretty, smart, interesting, and seemed to really like him a lot. She had even come to his office for a visit. As he started to go on, I interrupted him.

“Chuck, do you like attorneys?”

“What do you mean?” he said looking surprised.

“Play it out,” I said. “You are having marital problems. You meet this attractive woman who seems interested in you. She has been to your office. The next step, if it has not happened already, is for you to have sex with her. Then your wife will probably find out. You have ADD so you are not good at hiding things. She has a hot cingulate so she will never forgive you. She will file for divorce, you will spend a lot of money and time with attorneys, and hate yourself for putting your family through all this stuff, and then a year from now you will lose half of your net worth and you will be visiting your children on the weekends.”

“Wow,” Chuck said, looking deflated. “I never thought about it like that.”

“That is what your prefrontal cortex does for you,” I said. “It plays things out.”

Chuck later told me that he never called the woman back.

A lack of honesty and integrity breeds mistrust and has destroyed people’s success through the ages. One of the most precious things each of us has is our word. When we say something is true and we have integrity, people believe us. Without integrity, people always look at us and wonder.

Integrity is being who you say you are. We are faced with the choices of integrity every day. Sometimes we choose for it; sometimes not. When we circumvent our commitments, we cheat not only ourselves but also those who depend on us. When we live up to our commitments, the bonds of trust are strengthened. Integrity, goal setting, consistent effort, and navigating change are ultimately all brain functions.