(Mis)Trust and Paranoia across the Lifespan, Cultures, and Covid-19

He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted. – Lao ZiThe trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool. – Stephen KingAs humans, our ability to trust others forms the bedrock of daily functioning and relationships. On the one hand, too much trust can be harmful, and too little, problematic. Why does this trait even exist? Some scholars have argued that distrust is evolutionary advantageous - a universal trait that has evolved in response to social selection pressures – a characteristic that ensures human survival (Green & Philips, 2004; Raihani & Bell, 2019). Other researchers have said that trust and distrust are related and highly influenced by parenting (Berry et al., 2010; Wong & Esposito, 2019), the environment and early developmental experiences (Wong, Raine, & Venables, 2018; Raine, Wong, & Liu, 2021), yet distinct in that trust is heritable (at 30%) and distrust is not (0%) (Reimann, Schilke, & Cook, 2017). In a society where individuals are ever more connected and populations more multicultural, let us consider in this chapter the research on extreme distrust, how this impacts an individual’s development across the lifespan, whether the outcomes are the same across cultures, and what support systems are needed to help these individuals.