The Fastest Way to Lose Trust? Ask for It.
Trust is a strange thing. The moment someone says, “Trust me,” we instinctively hesitate, don't we? Not because we’re suspicious by nature, but because trust doesn’t like to be summoned. The harder we push it, the more likely it is to retreat.
Psychologists have a name for this: opponent process theory. It was first developed to explain how we perceive color.
For example, if you stare at a bright red square for 30 seconds and then look away to a white wall, you'll briefly see green, its visual opposite. The eye, overstimulated by red, rebounds in the other direction. This same principle, researchers found, applies to emotions. Push too hard on one feeling, and you awaken its opposite.
The opponent process theory describes how every emotional state, when forced, can backfire. Chase happiness too hard and you find emptiness. Try to force sleep and you lie awake. Pressure intimacy and it disappears.
Trust follows the same rule. The more overtly you demand it, the more likely people are to feel the tension that trust is supposed to relieve. That’s the paradox. Trust isn’t something you get by declaring it. It only emerges when the conditions are right.
Why This Matters for Brands
The fact that you cannot force an emotional state has tremendous implications for how brands communicate.
According to The Mission Statement Book, which analyzed 301 mission statements from American companies, the word “trust” appears in 59 of them. That’s nearly one in five companies explicitly saying they are trustworthy.
That’s a big problem, not because those companies are wrong to want trust, but because saying it out loud can undermine it. It triggers the very psychological reflex that leads customers to ask: “Why are you telling me this? Should I be worried?”
Trust Can’t Be Told, It Has to Be Shown
This is where many brands get stuck. Trust feels like a big, bold claim that should be printed on packaging, shouted in ads, or baked into taglines. But trust doesn’t respond well to spotlighting. It prefers the quiet consistency of behavior.
The most trustworthy brands rarely use the word. They don’t need to. Their actions do the speaking:
Promises are modest and kept.
Experiences are coherent across touchpoints.
Failures are met with responsibility, not spin.
Customers feel seen, not sold to.
In other words, trust isn’t a message. It’s a pattern of evidence. It accumulates slowly, like sediment, not suddenly, like a campaign.
Create the Conditions and Trust Will Follow
The wiser path isn’t to shout about trust, but to reduce the likelihood of betrayal. When your systems are clear, your promises are realistic, and your team is empowered to do right by the customer, trust grows naturally.
You don’t need to ask for it. You just need to make suspicion irrelevant. When that happens, the paradox dissolves.
Trust isn’t declared. It simply exists.
Let Trust Be Earned, Not Claimed
If you're tempted to put the word “trust” into your next campaign, pause. Instead, ask:
Are we signaling trustworthiness without saying the word?
Are our actions so consistent that customers feel trust before we ask for it?
Do our systems make betrayal unlikely, or just less visible?
Trust isn’t a brand asset you publish. It’s one you build quietly and intentionally, until one day, no one questions it.
Written by Günter Soydanbay
(in collaboration with Ozan Karakoc Design Studio)
