1. Dynamics of Trust From: Gary Furlong The Conflict Resolution Toolbox
Models and Maps for Analyzing, Diagnosing and Resolving Conflict

2. Background This model was developed initially by Daryl Landau.
A significant amount of research was conducted to develop this model in the area of Attribution Theory, a cornerstone in understanding the dynamics of trust in human interactions.

3. Trust Defined
A simple definition of trust is having positive expectations about another’s motives and intentions toward us where potential risk is involved.

4. 2 Key Elements of Trust
Risk: Risk is a key element of trust, in the sense that we have to take risks (small or large) to explore, test, and eventually build trust. Without actually relying on someone, without taking a small risk with them, we can never really know if we can trust them. A significant question, however, is given a choice, why would anyone ever take such a risk? The answer is simple: it's the only way to get what we want. If we needed and nothing from each other, ever, there would be no need for trust in the first place. The reality, of course, is the opposite. The more interdependent we are, whether at work or our personal lives, the more we rely on others, the more risk we must take. The level of trust we have in the situation of the people affects the size of the risk will take and how frequently we will take those risks. Risk is integral to trust at all levels.

5. 2 Key Elements of Trust
Motives and intentions: the motives and intentions of other people are invisible to us, we can only infer tribute motives based on their behavior; or, more accurately how we interpret their behavior. When the assessed another person's trustworthiness, we are assessing whether they have “good intentions," (that they care about the needs of others) or whether they have “bad intentions,"(they are in different to others needs, care only about themselves, or will actively harm other people for their own benefit). Our assignment of motives to other people is critical, because it also determines how we assign fault to blame. When conflict arises, how we decide who caused it, and therefore who is at fault and who is to blame, will determine what happens to her level of trust with the other party.

6. Dynamics of Trust Focus
The assessment of each party's level of risk tolerance relative to what they want or need, and
the assessment of causes and assignment of blame.

7. Risk and Risk Tolerance
Complex balance of personality and past experience with similar situations
Not necessarily based on a factual assessment
Also considers the relationship between fear of what might be lost compared to the benefit of what might be gained – risk/reward

8. Causes and blame – Attribution and self-serving bias
Attribution Theory is a cornerstone of the broader discipline of psychology, and has been subject to significant amounts of research and writing over the last 30 years.
Essentially, what estimations theories says is this: when a negative event arises, when you're hurt or harm, we begin by attributing the cause to someone or something. We do this in order to make sense of what is happened. We have a strong tendency to attribute in a particular way.

9. Causes and blame – Attribution and self-serving bias
Attribution to self - when you're involved with or cause a negative event, we have strong tendency to attribute the cost of the situation, such as lack of information, lack of training (that should have been given to us), orders from our boss that we had no choice about, market forces, or other circumstances that we see is beyond our control. In essence, we attribute the best of intentions to ourselves and blame outside circumstances for the problem, thus minimizing the fault or blame.

10. Causes and blame – Attribution and self-serving bias
Attribution to others - When others are involved with or cause a negative event, we have a strong tendency to ignore (or minimize) the situational factors in a tribute to cause to the intrinsic nature or bad intentions of the other person. In other words, we may fall to blame on the other individual personally; we attribute the cost of any bad character, they're into France, even their obvious bad intentions. We give ourselves the benefit of the doubt (big-time), but do not give that to others.

11. Causes and blame – Attribution and self-serving bias
Effect of the self-serving bias on trust - this self-serving bias has a profound effect on trust. It means that in many situations, but negative events are attributed in a way that exaggerates the raw income invents bad intentions, claims the other party to the point of feeling betrayed, and makes the conflict deeply personal. All of this happens because of the assumptions sugar by the self-serving bias and not because what is necessarily true the effect on trust is dramatic. Negative attributions and blame magnify the “risk” side of the equation and minimize the possibility of any reward, making any month of trust almost impossible. Clearly, a practitioner must understand the dynamics of attribution and blame to work effectively with trust in conflict situations.

13. Situation Attribution
the cause is due to factors beyond the person's controller skill level. The intentions were good, they try their best, and the outcome was not desired by anyone. Some of the beliefs at this type of attribution tends to generate are:
circumstances outside of the person's control caused the problem, or forced the person into doing what they did;
their lack of skill or knowledge, or lack of accurate information, cause the problem;
it's not their fault, the circumstances were largely beyond their control;
the person did their best in spite of lacking information, knowledge, or skill needed;
the problem may cause is not indicative of their nature or their character;
the person is blamed very little, if at all;
the intentions attributed range from good to okay;
this is probably a good person, who may need help;
the person's actions were not aimed personally addressed in any way.
Examples:
a boss fires three employees because the company is close to bankruptcy and he doesn't have any other option.
A person kills an intruder attack are purely in self-defense.
A person rear ends the car in front because of black ice on the road.
The clerk makes a mistake because he was never trained properly in the computer system.

14. Intrinsic nature Attribution
essentially attributes the conflict to the intrinsic nature of the other person. It may be because they're shy, it's me being because of their culture traditions, it may be that past experiences are core values and strongly affected them, it may be that they simply don't pay attention to other people, but in all cases the causes and attributed to the other persons any character or nature rather than to conscious, intentional behavior. Some believe that this type of attribution tends to generate are:
 The person caused harm because of their intrinsic qualities: personality, culture, values, past experience;
the person's intrinsic nature can be seen is benign, or can be seen as dangerous;
it to me or may not be their fault, Harmer conflict is not necessarily intentional, it was more a byproduct of their intrinsic qualities;
the person may or may not be aware of the Harmer the impact on the other person;
blame can range from very low to medium high;
intentions attributed can range from good all the way to negative.
Examples:
a manager who steps on people's toes because she is a workaholic committed to meeting the team's goals and objectives;
a child or mentally incompetent person who starts a fire that injured someone;
employee who doesn't address the problem because he simply cannot deal with confrontation of any kind;
parents who push their children incessantly to go to college because they never had a chance themselves;
a friend who betrays the trust because he or she is incapable of keeping a secret.

15. Intentional/hostile Attribution
this is the most destructive form of attribution in that it lays complete blame on the other person. If these actions is intentionally causing harm coming either because they're hostile toward us or they gain in some way by harming us, it assumes that the other person you would damage the actions of cause, and proceeded anyway. It assumes intentional dishonesty, meanness, and hostility. Some beliefs that this type of attribution tends to generate are:
the person intentionally caused harm, for personal gain or advantage;
the circumstances and choices causing the conflict or harm are fully in the person's controlling choice;
full blame is attributed to the person;
intentions attributed range from negative to evil
the actions range personally and directly at us.
Examples:
an insurance claimant who is lying to collect on the insurance policy;
bosses who degrade employees in front of the team because they enjoy using their power, or simply to teach them who is boss;
a boss who fires an employee to make himself look good and get promoted;
a person who deliberately break the contract because he or she found a cheaper price elsewhere;
a friend who betrays a trust for personal gain.

16. Attribution and Blame
strong correlation between the type of attribution unique and the laying of blame. In general, the situation attribution minimizes laying the blame on the other party and he personalizes the situation: the intrinsic attribution causes a low moderate level of blame along with a moderate amount of taking it personally, and the intentional attribution is a significant amount to blame that feels highly personal.

17. How Attributions Form
Motives and intentions cannot be seen, they can only be inferred from our interpretation of the other parties behavior. And attributions, therefore, are fundamentally perceptions, not reality. Perceptions are influenced mostly by two factors: information and preconceptions.

18. How Attributions Form - Information
Information, or data, greatly influence the attributions made. Misinformation, lack of information, different interpretations of information, and even too much information make it difficult to evaluate the situation. Nevertheless, we must evaluate the situation in order to make sense of it. This evaluation is done, therefore, by selecting the information that supports one of the view of the situation and rejecting or ignoring information that contradicts that view.

19. How Attributions Form - Preconceptions
Preconceptions refer to the values, police, past experiences, stereotypes, and assumptions that we all carry. While most of us except the phrase scenes be leaving, numerous studies have shown that the reverse is more commonly true, that in fact be leading a scene. This means that whatever we already believe is what we tend to see. If we believe our friend is lazy for example, we attribute her being 15 minutes late to that belief, and ignoring the obvious fact that it's rush hour or that it's snowing outside.

20. Summary of Attributions
The trust model clearly shows us the following:
the attribution to each party, including ourselves, makes in a given situation dramatically influence the behavior of each party toward the other;
some attributions maintain trust between the parties, and some not only destroy trust, they also prevent any rebuilding of trust;
attributions are frequently based on incomplete or incorrect information, along with preconceptions and stereotypes;
attributions can be changed.

21. Interpersonal Trust Examples:
interpersonal trust is a set of feelings that defines how comfortable we are at taking given level of risk with a specific person. This has to do with our judgment of that person's character, integrity, values, and so on. It answers the question, how much I trust this individual?
this is the strongest form of trust;
usually based on belief in assumption and less on actual information -- we just know that they can be trusted;
inconsistent behavior may have absolutely no effect on trust -- I know you must have had a very good reason for doing that;
with interpersonal trust, parties tend to assume the motives of the other person are good;
parties are anticipating success in the relationship as a way to validate their decision to trust;
based on perceived common values and common interests, to a large degree;
Examples:
examples of strong interpersonal trust include doing business on a handshake, sharing information with a close friend that could harm us if revealed, sharing sensitive information in a negotiation because we've worked with the other party before, loaning money to a colleague, et cetera

22. Procedural Trust
procedural trust is the trusted place in a structure or process here involved in, as opposed to the individual. For example, parties often attempt mediation when they have very little trust in each other, and may have little experience with the mediator as well. In this case, they are placing their trust in the mediation process itself. It answers the question, how much trust do I have in the process itself, regardless of the individuals involved?
this is limited, situation-specific trust and tends to be more fragile than interpersonal trust;
procedural trust is broken by unexpected or inconsistent behavior;
based on trust and structures surrounding the individuals involved -- are they licensed or trained? Do they have credentials? Have the drugs been tested and approved by the government?;
based on monitoring -- a third-party monitors and verifies the quality of the work; the manager monitors the employee's arrival time to verify attendance;
based on deterrence -- I don't pay you until the work is completed;
parties tend to assume the motives of the other person are either selfish or uncaring of others, which is why the procedural trust is needed in the first place;
parties are anticipating failure as a way to protect themselves;
Examples:
examples of procedural trust included the process of buying a house, where the purchase money in the Dieter exchange your trusted third party like a lawyer; court supervised visits with children where the marital relationship is broken down; and having a facilitator mediator manage the negotiation to ensure that neither side is anything in prayer or unreasonable.

23. Confidence Building Measures: Increase in Interpersonal Trust:
Strategies
Strategy 1 - focused on procedural trust, not interpersonal trust
Procedural Trust:
Monitoring
Third Party Help
Mutual Deterrence
Risk/Reward analysis
Steps taken with independent verification that requires little interpersonal trust to commit to – no/low risk.
Confidence Building Measures:
Unilateral steps taken by one party to show good faith and to test the good faith of the other party.
Once parties see each other performing as they said they would, it encourages parties to take greater risks with each other in the future.
Increase in Interpersonal Trust:
Parties see each other taking risks, fulfilling commitments
Parties build history of trustworthiness between themselves over time.

24. Strategies Strategy 2 – attributional retraining
the second strategy to deal with negative attributions is to directly address the attribution made by each party about the other. This strategy applies for there is an abundance of intrinsic or intentionally attributions
as previously noted whenever attributions are made, they are based on assumptions, on interpreting the information in a particular way. Parties frequently takes the information you arrive at very different attributions and conclusions.
What this all means, then, is that both parties attributions can be, and often are, biased, exaggerated, or simply wrong.