The Neurobiology Of Trust

This is a multi-disciplinary introduction to the study of trust, written by experts from the social, behavioural, and neural sciences.

Uniting attachment-focused therapy and neurobiology to help distrustful and traumatized children revive a sense of trust and connection. How can therapists and caregivers help maltreated children recover what they were born with: the potential to experience the safety, comfort, and joy of having trustworthy, loving adults in their lives? This groundbreaking book explores, for the first time, how the attachment-focused family therapy model can respond to this question at a neural level. It is a rich, accessible investigation of the brain science of early childhood and developmental trauma. Each chapter offers clinicians new insights—and powerful new methods—to help neglected and insecurely attached children regain a sense of safety and security with caring adults. Throughout, vibrant clinical vignettes drawn from the authors' own experience illustrate how informed clinical processes can promote positive change. Authors Baylin and Hughes have collaborated for many years on the treatment of maltreated children and their caregivers. Both experienced psychologists, their shared project has bee the development of the science-based model of attachment-focused therapy in this book—a model that links clinical interventions to the crucial underlying processes of trust, mistrust, and trust building—helping children learn to trust caregivers and caregivers to be the "trust builders" these children need. The book begins by explaining the neurobiology of blocked trust, using the latest social neuroscience to show how the child's early development gets channeled into a core strategy of defensive living. Subsequent chapters address, among other valuable subjects, how new research on behavioral epigenetics has shown ways that highly stressful early life experiences affect brain development through patterns of gene expression, adapting the child's brain for mistrust rather than trust, and what it means for treatment approaches. Finally, readers will learn what goes on in the child's brain during attachment-focused therapy, honing in on the dyadic processes of adult-child interaction that seem to embody the core "mechanisms of change": elements of attachment-focused interventions that target the child's defensive brain, calm this system, and reopen the child's potential to learn from new experiences with caring adults, and that it is safe to depend upon them. If trust is to develop and care is to be restored, clinicians need to know what prevents the development of trust in the first place, particularly when a child is living in an environment of good care for a long period of time. What do abuse and neglect do to the development of children's brains that makes it so difficult for them to trust adults who are so different from those who hurt them? This book presents a brain-based understanding that professionals can apply to answering these questions and encouraging the development of healthy trust.

What is morality? Where does it come from? And why do most of us heed its call most of the time? In Braintrust, neurophilosophy pioneer Patricia Churchland argues that morality originates in the biology of the brain. She describes the "neurobiological platform of bonding" that, modified by evolutionary pressures and cultural values, has led to human styles of moral behavior. The result is a provocative genealogy of morals that asks us to reevaluate the priority given to religion, absolute rules, and pure reason in accounting for the basis of morality. Moral values, Churchland argues, are rooted in a behavior common to all mammals--the caring for offspring. The evolved structure, processes, and chemistry of the brain incline humans to strive not only for self-preservation but for the well-being of allied selves--first offspring, then mates, kin, and so on, in wider and wider "caring" circles. Separation and exclusion cause pain, and the company of loved ones causes pleasure; responding to feelings of social pain and pleasure, brains adjust their circuitry to local customs. In this way, caring is apportioned, conscience molded, and moral intuitions instilled. A key part of the story is oxytocin, an ancient body-and-brain molecule that, by decreasing the stress response, allows humans to develop the trust in one another necessary for the development of close-knit ties, social institutions, and morality. A major new account of what really makes us moral, Braintrust challenges us to reconsider the origins of some of our most cherished values.

One of the key scientific challenges is the puzzle of human cooperation. Why do people cooperate with one another? What causes individuals to lend a helping hand to a stranger, even if it comes at a major cost to their own well-being? Why do people severely punish those who violate social norms and undermine the collective interest? Edited by Paul A.M. Van Lange, Bettina Rockenbach, and Toshio Yamagishi, Trust in Social Dilemmas carefully considers the role of trust in establishing, promoting, and maintaining overall human cooperation. By exploring the impact of trust and effective cooperation on relationships, organizations, and communities, Trust in Social Dilemmas draws inspiration from the fact that social dilemmas, defined in terms of conflicts between self-interest and the collective interest, are omnipresent in today's society. In capturing the breadth and relevance of trust to social dilemmas and human cooperation more generally, this book is structured in three effective parts for readers: the biology and development of trust; the importance of trust for groups and organizations; and how trust factors across the overall health of today's society. As Van Lange, Rockenbach, Yamagishi, and their team of expert contributors all explore in this compelling new volume, there is little doubt that trust and cooperation are intimately related in most - if not all - of our social dilemmas.

Unlike many current approaches, this book looks at trust relations in order to understand schooling and other social practices. Trust relations include both what an individual is prepared to trust in the circumstances, and what a competent practitioner in an evolving tradition should trust. It is therefore considered whether trust relations are more fundamental in society than those of truth or power. Schooling has a social, as well as an education, role. As a result, the scope of the trust relations under investigation must range beyond the pedagogical. By expanding our understanding of the trust relations required to create and maintain effective schooling in particular circumstances, it may be possible for a greater section of society to receive a good education. Issues including curriculum, classroom management, and community relations may be understood in a different way and help enable currently intractable problems to be tackled more effectively. This book presents the initial investigations of a number of authors who collaborated on this project and was originally published as a special issue of the journal, Educational Philosophy and Theory.

“This one’s worth reading. Trust me.” —Daniel Gilbert, PhD, bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness Issues of trust come attached to almost every human interaction, yet few people realize how powerfully their ability to determine trustworthiness predicts future success. David DeSteno’s cutting-edge research on reading trust cues with humanoid robots has already excited widespread media interest. In The Truth About Trust, the renowned psychologist shares his findings and debunks numerous popular beliefs, including Paul Zak’s theory that oxytocin is the “moral molecule.” From education and business to romance and dieting, DeSteno’s fascinating, paradigm-shifting book offers new insights and practical takeaways that will forever change how readers understand, communicate, and make decisions in every area of life.

This book intends to open the debate between three main aspects of clinical practice: psychotherapy (including psychological and philosophical influences), neurobiology and pharmacology. These three main themes are clinically applied in what we call the “Intervention Triangle”. The book will first focus on epistemologically distinct frameworks and gradually attempt to consider the integration of these three fundamental vertexes of practice. These vertexes are substantially unbalanced in the mental health field, and thus, this book tries to make sense of this phenomenon. Unique in its interdisciplinary and comprehensive view of mental health problems and approaches, this book offers a new perspective on unidisciplinary integration that previous publications have not considered. As an innovative contribution to its field, this volume will be particularly relevant to practitioners working towards integrative frameworks. It will also be of interest to students, clinicians and researchers, in particular, those working in psychology, medicine, psychiatry, philosophy, social work, and pharmacy.

Why is the culture of a stagnant workplace so difficult to improve? Learn to cultivate a workplace where trust, joy, and commitment compounds naturally by harnessing the power of neurochemistry! For decades, business leaders have been equipping themselves with every book, philosophy, reward, and program, yet companies everywhere continue to struggle with toxic cultures, and the unhappiness and low productivity that go with them. In Trust Factor, neuroscientist Paul Zak shows that innate brain functions hold the answers we’ve been looking for. Put simply, the key to providing an engaging, encouraging, positive culture that keeps your employees energized is trust. When someone shows you trust, a feel-good jolt of oxytocin surges through your brain and triggers you to reciprocate. Within this book, Zak explains topics such as: How brain chemicals affect behavior Why trust gets squashed How to stimulate trust within your employees And much more! This book also incorporates science-based insights for building high-trust organizations with successful examples from The Container Store, Zappos, and Herman Miller. Stop recycling the same ineffective strategies and programs for improving culture. By using the simple mechanisms in Trust Factor, you can create a perpetual trust-building cycle between your management and staff, thus ending stubborn workplace patterns.