ABSTRACT
Trust and distrust have different addresses in the brain. Trust is not just the absence of distrust; the two take place in different parts of the brain, according to Angelika Dimoka of the Center for Neural Decision Making at the Fox School of Business, Temple University. Distrust is signaled through the amygdala and trust is signaled through the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is where we compare our expectations of what will happen against reality. This is where we match our worldview with that of other people; where those views align we feel the greatest trust. Happily, strong bonds of trust serve up a cocktail of the brain’s feelgood natural chemicals like oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin. Researchers have linked the orbitofrontal cortex to uncertainty, and demonstrated that activating this part of the brain increases distrust. Distrust is signaled through the amygdala and trust is signaled through the prefrontal cortex.
