Eight: Trust
Trust, belief, and faith are essentially the same thing: a person expects a specific outcome if he takes specific actions. It is critical to human interactions to have confidence in the behavior of others, and it is critical in brand interactions to have confidence in the behavior of the brand.
Trust is essential to human survival: if we drink water, it is because we trust that it will hydrate us and is not poisonous. We must have some way of making that assessment before we take action and we expect that there will be consistency in future, that the well from which we drank yesterday remains safe today. Habits, themselves, are a "defense against thinking."
When we encounter something new, we must assess whether it can be trusted. That is, when we seek to draw water from a well we have never used, nor have we seen anyone else use it, our decision-making process is more difficult: we must observe and assess it to determine whether we will trust it.
When there is great risk involved, we can be very meticulous about making trust assessments. However, we are not always thorough in our thinking. Studies show that people can be very superficial in granting trust to any unknown factor (object or person) - we do not laboriously inspect and analyze but go by gut-feeling for most of our decisions. (EN: This is called an emotional approach - but emotions are rational shortcuts, so beware of the assumption that it is irrational.)
There's a brief mention of risk tolerance in situations of uncertainty. Gambling experiments routinely show this: if a person is offered a small amount of money, or a 50/50 chance to take double, about 60% of people will go for the sure thing - even though statistically the two are of equal value.
Trust is based on experience: a person who has been harmed is less likely to trust. Trust relates to fear - whether it is an instinctive hippocampal reaction, an emotional reaction, or a memory of past experience. Those whose expectations have been fulfilled have a greater capacity to trust and those whose expectations have not been met have a lesser capacity. This pertains to both specific instances where the proposed trust arrangement is similar to past experiences as well as in general.
Biological Bases of Trust
The author relates a few studies into hormonal and chemical influences that suggest oxytocin makes people more inclined to trust and collaborate whereas dihydrotestosterone (DHT) makes them more likely to distrust and compete.
One set of experiments involved a trust game, in which a player who was given a sum of money was to offer a share of it to the other player, and if the second player rejected their offer neither would get anything. It was first observed that players who offered more had higher levels of oxytocin, and then the experiment was altered to show that people dosed with oxytocin tended to offer more to the other player.
No such research is presented about DHT, only the observation that it is naturally produced/released in survival situations, in which human behavior tends to be most short-sighted and self-serving. It's also observed that people who are amped up on DHT often act very irrationally and destructively - and it is speculated that the reason that rioters often destroy their own neighborhoods is because of the influence of DHT.
There's a loose bit about how familiarity tends to create a positive response with less brain activity. An experiment placed subjects in an MRI scanner, which monitors brain activity, and were questioned about their trust in advertising claims. Some of the stimuli were the logos, slogans, jingles, and other elements of brands that advertised heavily, to which participants were likely exposed, whereas others were complete fabrications that they would never have seen. Not only did they give more credibility to those that were known, but their brains also showed less activity while evaluating whether to trust.
In terms of repetition, the author presents a long list from Thomas Smtih's book Successful Advertising, published in 1895. While Smith's work is entirely speculative, not based on any formal research, it is very astute in its observations: The first time a person sees an ad, he doesn't even see it; the second time, he doesn't even notice it; the fifth time, they actually read it; the thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value; the sixteenth time, they believe they will buy it in the future; the twentieth time, they buy it. (EN: Each step in-between is detailed, but many are redundant or comical.)
More recent research (Skurnik 2005) shows that people tend to trust in claims that they have heard repeatedly. The experiment consisted of exposing subjects to a specious claim, and one that was in fact entirely false. Most would scoff at the statement the first time they hear it, but after three repetitions they begin to think it may have merit. Moreover, after a three-day delay, the level of credibility is higher, as the person recalls hearing the claim but not the specific context in which they heard it.
Then, an anecdote about President Barack Obama: a 2012 opinion poll indicated that many citizens, even those who supported him, believed him to be a Muslim. This had been suggested by his opponents in 2008, and while the candidate's supporters presented copious evidence to the contrary, the mere repetition of the accusation by his opponents created the perception that it was true.
Loose Topics
The author mentions the longevity of advertising, how adults remember brand characters (Toucan Sam or Tony the Tiger) that they were exposed to during childhood because of the strong emotional association of those characters to a time in which a person experienced well-being and trust.
The length of exposure is also related to trust-building. It's suggested that Christmas commercials begin broadcasting up to seven weeks before the holiday in order for repeated exposures to create familiarity with brands.
The author mentions an experiment (Crockett 2013) that involved showing subjects pornographic images and asking them to indicate whether they found the images attractive. At first, reactions were entirely negative (since pornography is taboo, people will claim not to enjoy it), but with repeated exposures, they eventually began to rate some of the images as enjoyable. Of particular interest, some images were presented repeatedly, and those were very often rated as being attractive - even when they were rated as unattractive when they were seen the first time.
There's a rather long passage about the urban myths surrounding Coca-Cola, many of which are grisly and unappetizing, yet the public still continues to consume the product. It's speculated that the constant advertising the product does is largely defensive - that Coke has not gained considerable market share, but the positive messages do much to maintain its market in the face of detractors' claims.