I just finished reading Trust by Pete Buttigieg. He is amazingly thoughtful and insightful for a politician. One of his points is that trust is best seen in behavior. A short passage:
If we think of trust as the belief that someone will do what is hoped or promised, the most basic human way to decide whether to trust that person is to notice what they have done before.
Without putting it so eloquently, I followed this maxim with colleagues when we spoke with small-town residents interested in learning about our self-help approach to getting needed water or wastewater improvements. We noted that while we could take five meetings to develop trust that this would mean five more weeks of their carrying or boiling water. Instead, how about we each (residents and my organization) promise the other something and meet again. We will trust each other if we deliver. That worked.
Pete goes on to describe many more philosophical dimensions of trust in the book but none take away anything from the simple truth of trusting what I do more than what I say. As he notes, this is about performance. We speak of our “trusty” knife, friend, or steed because they are predictably there for us.
Many other words can also boil down to behaviors. Holler if you want my take on behavioral definitions of empowerment, self-esteem, collaboration, and other abstract terms. And trust me if I respond!
Hi! could you share you insight on self-esteem and compare it to self-efficacy? Also, how about insight on an abstract thought about getting “out of the comfort zone” how it provides growth (how and why). Thanks!
Kristi, just saw this. Did you just comment or has it languished here. We have a few bugs in the comments and response area!
Great question. Self-efficacy is a perception of ability to do something and is correlated in health with patient activation. Patients who have a sense of efficacy believe that what they do matters to their health. They can influence it. Applies to other areas. Self esteem is more how a person feels about themselves overall and in my view is not as directly connected to will power or confidence to do and achieve something. That help?