Trusting People Security & Comfort vs Risks and Pain
By Guy L. De Furia PhD

This book explains the dynamics of interpersonal trust, the benefits of high trust relationships and the consequences of low trust relationships.
The venues where trust dynamics unfold are each described in a separate chapter: Self Trust, Trust in Friendships, Trust in Marriage or Civil Union, Trust among Family Members, Trust in Schools, Trust in the Work Setting and Trusting Strangers. The Trust Questionnaire provides the reader with a paragraph which describes the individual's propensity to help or hinder trust.
What is Interpersonal Trust? How are intent and ability important? Are values good predictors of trustworthiness? What are the benefits of high trust and consequences of low trust? Does trust affect a person's perception of reality? The benefits to risk approach to trusting someone. What are the behaviors that build trust and those that destroy trust? When should you end a damaging relationship? Do men and women have differing priorities in what behaviors trigger feelings of comfort and security in interpersonal relationship? Can trustworthiness be faked?
The Self Trust chapter includes topics: What is Self-trust? What are my values? Where do my expectations come from? How does strategic planning relate to self-trust? How to develop a Personal Strategic Plan?
Trust in Friendships includes topics: What is friendship trust? What does self-disclosure have to do with trust? How do you develop goals and expectations for friendship trust? Do men and women differ in what they expect in trust relationships? What are the signs of high or low trust friendships? Can trustworthiness be faked?
Trust in Marriage or Civil Union includes topics: Signs of committed relationships high versus low in trust. How to increase you significant other's trust. What is the process of building and maintaining trust? Included are examples of relationships in jeopardy and proposed solutions.
Trust within a Family includes: What is it? How do trust roles change over time? How important are motives and ability? What are the expectations of children, siblings, parents? Will parents with very different values hinder the establishment of familial trust?
Trust in Schools has information useful to teachers and school administrators. It includes information about establishing and maintaining trust relationships between principal and teacher, teacher and parents, plus teacher and students. Topics include requirements for trust, community values impact trust relationships, improving student trustworthiness, and consequences of ignoring undesirable trust behavior.
Trust in the Work Setting identifies the four ingredients required of trust in the work setting. Other topics include: organizational trust and company profits, six places where trust is impactful: ownership level, ownership level and employees, senior leadership and line supervisors, line supervisors and employees, workers and coworkers, plus the organization and customers. Why do workers fail to meet management's expectations? Also included are behavior norms, authoritarian leadership, benefits of high organizational trust, how supervisors can build trust with employees, recovering from low trust, format for a team building meeting, and building trust with customers.
Trusting Strangers answers the following questions: Should I trust a stranger? How should I relate to strangers? How can I determine if I should trust this stranger? What has trust got to do with voting? When does trusting a stranger become unwise or dangerous?
Exercises: All chapters include exercises which purposes are to encourage the reader to consciously identify the "keep able information" from the chapter and provide meaningful questions for group discussion. There are 56 exercises.