Trust,Distrust, and Feminist Theory

I explore Baier, Held, Okin, Code, Noddings, and Eisler on trust and distrust. This reveals a need for reflection on the analysis, ethics, and dynamics of trust and distrust—especially the distinction between trusting and taking for granted, the feasibility of choosing greater trust, and the possibility of moving from situations of warranted distrust to trust. It is impossible to overcome the need for trust through surveillance, recourse to contracts, or legal institutions.     

The Shadow Side of Regressive Groups

The inability of groups to address conflict, encourage dissenting views, and face their negative characteristics can result in destructive behavior toward others that remains largely outside the awareness of the individual members. These regressive group characteristics are examined and the behavior of the United States during the Persian Gulf war is used to highlight the discussion.     

Political Distrust and Gendered Attitudes: The Japanese State and Women

We explore sources of political trust by examining one’s gender role attitudes as they relate to political trust in Japan. We hypothesize that progressive gender role attitudes are associated with political distrust. This political distrust is perhaps caused by relative deprivation which progressive individuals experience, given that gender relations are still traditional in Japan. We further hypothesize that this distrust among women extends to the government itself. We analyze the 2003 Japanese General Social Survey, a national representative survey of Japanese adults. Based on multivariate analyses of 1,807 respondents, we find support for our hypotheses. Our findings suggest that gender issues are salient among progressive individuals, especially among women.     

In God We Distrust: Christian Nationalism and Anti-Atheist Attitude

Prior research found that Christian nationalism, a belief that integrates Christian identity with American national identity, was associated with more negative views toward marginalized groups, such as religious minorities. Relatively less known is the relationship between Christian nationalism and attitudes toward atheists. Specifically, even less is known about whether or not Christian nationalism that is above individuals at the macro, geographic level may influence individual views of atheists. Using nationally representative multilevel data, this study found that higher individual Christian nationalism was associated with more negative views toward atheists. No robust state-level Christian nationalism influence was found for anti-atheist attitude. However, Blacks, relative to Whites, were less likely to view atheists negatively in states where Christian nationalism was higher. Meanwhile, in states where Christian nationalism was higher, Black Protestants were less prejudiced against atheists compared to Evangelical Protestants.     

Generalized Dispositional Distrust as the Common Core of Populism and Conspiracy Mentality

Populism and beliefs in conspiracy theories fuel societal division as both rely on a Manichean us-versus-them, good-versus-evil narrative. However, whether both constructs have the same dispositional roots is essentially unknown. Across three studies conducted in two different countries and using diverse samples (total N = 1,888), we show that populism and conspiracy mentality have a strong common core as evidenced using bifactor modeling. This common core was uniquely linked to (aversive) personality, namely the Dark Factor of Personality (D), beyond basic personality traits from the HEXACO Model of Personality Structure. The association between D and the common core, in turn, was fully accounted for by distrust-related beliefs as captured in cynicism, dangerous and competitive social worldviews, sensitivity to befallen injustice, and (low) trust propensity. Taken together, the results show that populism and conspiracy mentality have a shared psychological basis that is well described as a sociopolitically flavored manifestation of generalized dispositional distrust. The findings thus underscore the value of generalized trust for societal functioning and suggest that increasing trust may simultaneously combat both populism and beliefs in conspiracy theories.     

The Role of Memory Distrust in Cases of Internalised False Confession

This paper reviews the literature on the role of ‘memory distrust’ in cases of internalised false confessions and provides a heuristic model for understanding the antecedents and mechanism involved. It also provides an in‐depth analysis of two real life cases of ‘suspected’ murders involving six convicted persons, five of whom showed evidence of profound memory distrust regarding the alleged offences. The key factors were coercive interviewing, lengthy solitary confinement, contamination, psychological vulnerabilities (both state and trait) and lack of independent support during questioning. The vulnerabilities in such cases typically involve a combination of cognitive (memory flaws, lack of confidence in memory and failure to invoke distinctiveness heuristic), personality (suggestibility and compliance), health problems and motivational (desire and willingness to assist the police) factors. The two cases suggest that the process of internalised false confessions may be conceptualised in terms of five sequential steps: a trigger, plausibility, acceptance, reconstruction and resolution. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Loneliness,Interpersonal Distrust,and Alexithymia in University Students1

Loneliness has been linked to emotional knowledge and interpersonal distrust, but it is unknown whether it is mediated or moderated by these variables. Using self‐report measures, the relationship between loneliness, interpersonal distrust, and alexithymia was investigated in undergraduate students (N = 224). Analyses showed a direct relationship between alexithymia and social, family, and romantic loneliness. We also found that interpersonal distrust partly mediates this relationship, and that alexithymia and interpersonal distrust interacted to predict social and family loneliness. These findings suggest that links between the different facets of alexithymia, interpersonal distrust, and loneliness are complex and multifaceted, and they are discussed with regard to interventions for young adults.     

Cognition is a matter of trust: Distrust tunes cognitive processes

The current review proposes that exposure to a specific untrustworthy source of information engages a mode of thought—a distrust mindset—that is also evoked by incidental distrust contexts and by personality characteristics. The review summarises empirical research demonstrating that—in contrast to trust, which leads to the familiar congruent type of cognitive processes—distrust triggers a spontaneous activation of alternatives and incongruent associations for a given concept. These alternatives dilute the activation level of the given concept, indicating that our mind can spontaneously stop the congruent-processing flow. Consequently, distrust blocks congruent effects such as confirmatory biases, accessibility effects, stereotyping, and routine reasoning. Thus, the review suggests that the basic flow of our cognition is (dis)trust dependent. The review concludes with a discussion of the effect of the distrust mindset as a demonstration of (1) situated cognition and (2) a spontaneous negation process.     

Terrorism and the Uses of Terror

“Terrorism”' is sometimes defined as a “form ofcoercion.” But there are important differences between ordinary coercion and terrorist intimidation. This paper explores some of those differences, particularly the relation between coercion, on the one hand, and terror and terrorization, on the other hand. The paper argues that while terrorism is not necessarily associated with terror in the literal sense, it does often seek to instill a mental state like terror in the populations that it targets. However, the point of instilling this mental state is not necessarily coercive or intimidatory: one can try to instill terror as an act of punishment, or as an expressive or therapeutic act, or because one values the political consequences that might follow, or because one thinks terror is preferable, from an ethical point of view, to the inauthentic complacency that characterizes the targeted population at present. Though this paper asks questions about the definition of “terrorism,” these questions are not asked for their own sake. The quest for a canonical definition of “terrorism” is probably a waste of time. But asking questions which sound like questions of definition is sometimes a fruitful way of focusing our reflections on terrorism and organizing our response. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Leadership and Regressive Small Group Processes: A Case Study

The psychoanalytic literature of regressive group and intergroup processes is reviewed briefly and selectively to derive principles of effective, working group leadership. These principles are applied to a case study of the leadership provided by Terje Larsen to the unique work group of Palestinians, Israelis, and Norwegians who produced the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords.