The Trust Matrix - how different justification styles shape the way we trust
For almost a decade, and in all kinds of settings, I have given individuals and teams a simple trust exercise to do. It starts with a template like this:
The exercise begins with the middle dot that represents you. Think of people you know, and identify who is your most trusted relations? Put them in the circle closest to the center. As you think of more people, use your felt sense to place them either in the next concentric circle, representing the second-highest level of trust, or in the third outermost circle. This illustrates your trust network.
The purpose of the exercise is not about judging whether people are trustworthy. Rather the point is to become aware of the measurement criteria that are always operating in you implicitly, and to identify what are your foundations of trust.
Participants come away with a sense that they are ripples of trust moving through both space and time. Imagine 5 years or ten years back. Who was in your innermost circle then that is no longer in your trust network now. Who has moved closer, who has moved further. Who has recently come into your trust network?
When I first started presenting the trust exercise I imagined that there would be just a few variables that people used to talk about what implicit felt-sense was operating beneath peoples’ notions of trust. As it turns out, there are many many ways people talk about trust, and how trust develops or degrades in their own experience.
Years ago I have developed a source code analysis of trust, based on Deci’s self-determination theory. There is a video presentation and a podcast of this in the media section of this site. This analysis laid out how trust operates in our lived experience, but it did not account for the wide variety of differences in how people’s felt-sense was operating.
Recently I have been interested in Patricia McKinsey Crittenden’s DMM model of early childhood. The Dynamic Maturational Model which emphasizes the dynamic nature of relational maturation across the lifespan. This model doesn’t merely focus on the child, but instead zooms out into parents and adult relationships. My interest involves translating this work from a therapeutic setting to an organizational one..
The DMM model is based on two axis: an attachment style and a processing style. The illustration below places these axes in a 4 x 4 matrix.
According to the DMM, children develop unique dispositional states depending upon both genetic, epigenetic, and developmental conditions. Since we raise children according to gender assumptions, these also correlate to gender in our society. Parenting styles and sibling make-up as well as birth order all contribute to whether a child tends to take power, or seek approval in their relationships, as well as whether they process relational dynamics in a more affective (emotional) or cognitive style.
Affective styles tend more toward meaning-making functions of the psychic processes while cognitive styles tend more toward the mind’s predictive processing functions. Power or approval strategies are mostly dependent upon relational dynamics already in play in the family. Oftentimes the child will adopt different styles with each parent (i.e. switching from power to approval when interacting with the more dominant partner.) Siblings invite a panoply of styles, but over time the system becomes entrained such that each person develops a predominant style.
Together meaning-making and predictive processing create what psychologists call “the justification system.” It occurred to me that this is the bi-valent system that is operating in one’s felt-sense of trust— basically a justification system for placing others along a trust scale.
Now we can group justificatory responses into 4 categories that seem to encompass all the various responses.. I have labelled them in the matrix.
The left-hand quadrants (affective styles)
The upper left hand quadrant represents the justification style of people who primarily adopt a power strategy along with their affective style. Their justification system emphasizes reliability, evaluates on the basis of loyalty, and expects to receive in return, respect from the other.
The lower left-hand quadrant represents the justification style of people who primarily adopt an approval-seeking strategy along with their affective style. Their justification system emphasizes agreeableness, evaluates on the basis of normative standards, and expects to receive a recognition of belonging in return.
The right hand quadrants- cognitive styles
The upper right-hand quadrant represents the justification style of people who primarily adopt a power strategy along with their cognitive style. Their justification system emphasizes predictability, evaluates the other based on performance, and expects to receive status in return.
The lower right-hand quadrant represents justification style of people who primary adopt an approval-seeking strategy along with their cognitive style. Their justification system emphasizes reasonableness, evaluates the other on the basis of conscientiousness, and expects to receive honesty in return..