How Gullible Are You? Five Reasons Why We Easily Trust People And How to Fix Them.

Have you ever been deceived, lied, betrayed, and yet you never saw it coming? Like you spend countless sleelpless nights pondering:

" Why the hell was i so stupid? "

No big deal. Almost every human being experiences same issues every day. What i am telling you is that we, as a human being, were programmed to trust each other.

Here are five scientific reasons that may bring you around to awareness:

1. Trusting Bias

It is unarguable that trust holds important role in relationship. Without trust, everything seems vague; the foundation of relationship wouldn't be properly established and the relationship itself is going nowhere.

We, humans, are social species. In our history of evolutionary, in order to survive we need to corporate with each other. This is the base reason why we were programmed to trust each other. It is in our blood that our default response is to trust.

There was an experiment where people were told to judge whether the opposite person talking to them were lying or telling the truth. Even if they were convinced beforehand that the other person would be telling lies 50% of their statement, people still ended up believing more than 50% was truth all along.

Okay, it is more than okay to trust people that we know, and of course you wouldn't want to go around suspecting every stranger thinking that he or she is lying to us. But the best practice is to ensure that everyone around you is telling you the truth in SECRET. Ask questions, investigate, search, don't just take every word they said at the face value. Remember that people have a way of fooling their "inner-eye" where they convince themselves that it is actually fine to lie.

2. The Rule of Reciprocity.

We are all abound, or should i say, possess the urge to repay whatever act of kindness people do toward us. We automatically think that we need to repay when someone does something for us.

The rule of reciprocity is frequently manipulated by sales people, by distributing "free gifts" or sample product, it automatically triggers the feeling to reciprocate deep within us. Of course, they unscrupulously expect something far more valuable than what they gave us in return. The first step is to realize it is part of their marketing bullshit and eat those free samples deliberately!

3. Fear of Embarrassment in Public

Sometimes, even if we perfectly knew the guy we are talking to is ripping us off, we are afraid to actually "call him/her out" or to question them to gain better clarity about their purpose. This fear was born from the fear of being embarassed in the eyes of public. I am not saying this applies to everyone because that solely depends on the personality of prospected victims. More often than not, we choose to be quite and comply rather than be defensive for fear of becoming an object of attention.

Obviously we don't want to raise commotion by calling someone out in public with loud and high tone, don't forget that we can do it with manner or politely.

4. Belief in a Just World

"The world is fair". We like to believe that. Even if we entirely believe it is the opposite. (I bet you guys do so shut up)

We always think that someday, sometimes, there will be our turn to shine, things will perfectly go as planned. But here is one rule: Life doesn't always go as planned, any possibility, be it fortune or misfortune, may happen in any moment.

5. Cognitive Laziness

We tend to take mental shortcuts. Trusting others involves less mental effort than carefully analyzing what they are telling us. That's why we don't carefully read contracts or properly investigate claims. (Well yes sometimes i am lazy too)

What to do instead: Engage your brain. Think, analyze, and question. Realize that there are a lot of people out there who have learned the psychological rules of the game, and they don't play by the same rules of fairness that most of us subscribe to.

To summarize, i would like you, or even myself to use this knowledge of psychological processes to protect yourself. We must believe that human relationship is not always beautiful and superficial; There will always be people having something up on their sleeve to outwit people for their own good.

So, stay sharp guys!