The Field Guide › Article
A thorough examination of why trust and psychological safety are related but not interchangeable, and why the distinction matters in practice. Defines interpersonal trust as a willingness to accept vulnerability based on expectations of another's behaviour (Rousseau et al., 1998), resting on three judgments — ability, benevolence and integrity (Mayer et al., 1995) — which resolve into two dimensions: cognitive trust (belief in competence) and affective trust (belief in care and intention) (McAllister, 1995). The critical departure: trust is personal and individual; psychological safety is a shared property of a group (Edmondson, 1999). We can trust someone completely and still not feel safe to say 'I need help' or 'I disagree.' High cognitive trust can work against challenge: the more we trust someone's expertise, the less we credit our own dissenting read, so the challenge never forms. Trust's dark side includes groupthink, normalisation of deviance, and exploitation finding cover in reduced vigilance (Gargiulo and Ertug, 2006). Reducing psychological safety to trust is a leader-centric move that locates the problem and solution in the warmth of individual relationships rather than in structural incentives and power gradients. What PS actually requires is changing what it costs to speak across the gradient, or changing the gradient itself.