When Liking Replaces Trust
The psychology behind a dangerous substitution.
Yesterday I did a cross-post with The Red Pill Files talking about trust systems, and he made a critical point:
…what they don’t tell you is that you can know someone, like someone, and still not trust a damn thing they build.
That got me thinking.
In modern interpersonal dynamics—whether in friendships, activism, or political discourse—we are unwilling witnesses to a subtle but deeply consequential shift: the conflation of liking someone with trusting them. This change is a psychological vulnerability, and has far-reaching implications for personal relationships, organizational health, and even national security.
Don’t believe me? I’ll show you.
The Roots of Trust and Liking
Psychological research makes a clear distinction between trustworthiness and likability. Trustworthiness is generally built on demonstrated reliability, honesty, competence, and integrity; in other words, trust is based on someone’s character traits.
Liking, by contrast, is often based on shared values, humor, appearance, or other surface-level traits.
Robert Cialdini, in his foundational work on persuasion, identified liking as one of the six principles of influence. We are more likely to comply with or even copy people we like. We see this play out over and over; the entire influencer culture, for instance, is based on likeability (and social proof). I like this person, therefore I will listen to them when it comes to buying a product.
But this heuristic, admittedly useful in some contexts, becomes dangerous when it governs our allocation of trust. Social psychologist David DeSteno, author of The Truth About Trust, reinforces this point, arguing that our brains are wired to make fast assessments based on emotional resonance rather than evidence of trustworthiness.
We tend to make decisions about whether to trust someone based upon how they make us feel, not on whether they are doing trustworthy things.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow for most of us, who can easily think of people we trust (or at least, trust more than most other people). If we’re being honest, however, at least part of the reason we trust them is because we like them.
Liking is Faster and Easier
Liking is an emotional shortcut. In a cognitively overloaded world, we want easy indicators to help us navigate social complexity. If someone mirrors our beliefs, affirms our identity, or simply makes us feel good, we subconsciously interpret these signs as indicators of safety, and then we offer them our trust.
This is especially true in people who believe, usually because of trauma, that human relationships are transactional. I want you to love me, so I have to do what you want. Or maybe you make me feel good about myself, so you must be trustworthy. After all, if someone makes us feel as though we have worth, they MUST be worth trusting…right?
The problem is that real trust must be earned, and that earning process requires two things:
Testing: Whether it's something you test intentionally or simply observe in the moment, you need to see them actively demonstrate trustworthiness—especially under pressure or in situations where others might not.
Time: There has to be enough time in the equation to expose a pattern of those trustworthy acts.
There is no substitute for these two things. They must be applied intentionally and with purpose.
When we use the shortcut instead, relying on whether someone makes us feel seen, heard, or understood, we open ourselves up to exploitation. After all, what’s the base level toolkit for infiltrators and bad actors?
…to make you feel seen, heard, and understood.
This is the crux of far too many group implosions.
The Cost of Misplaced Trust
When trust is granted based on liking rather than on merit or evidence, dysfunction breeds. Narcissists, con artists, and grifters thrive in environments where social cohesion is prized over accountability. In activist circles, this can lead to infiltration, strategic sabotage, or psychological abuse cloaked in performative solidarity (and now we’re back to action currency.)
Groups and even movements implode because charismatic individuals were never challenged. In fact, on Friday I’m going to show you one well-known group where this exact thing happened.
Why does this keep happening? Why do groups consistently seem to be drawn to everything from narcissists to sociopaths to grifters? Because those people are likable, at least at first, and for far too many people, liking them IS trusting them.
We have to recalibrate how we define and distribute trust.
In resistance circles, we often talk about ‘vouching’ for someone; in a vouching system, someone already in the group essentially puts their stamp of approval on another person, typically a new recruit or prospect. I trust this person, so you can too.
Vouching, however, only works if you can guarantee with 100% certainty that the person doing the vouching has engaged in the time and testing equation, and isn’t just working off of their personal emotions regarding that person…and guess what? You can’t, unless you have absolute, intimate knowledge of every single factor they are using to create their decision-making process. Every trauma, every family dynamic from their childhood, every pivotal incident in their life, every lesson inadvertently learned through experience, every facet of how they view the world.
You might be willing to die for your cause—but are you willing to risk spending the rest of your life in prison, away from your family, just because you liked your buddy enough to trust someone he vouched for even though you never met them yourself? Do you like your buddy that much?
Now that we’ve laid out the problem, let’s talk about how to fix it.
Reclaiming Trust as a Deliberate Act
The bottom line is this: We must return to trust as a deliberate, measured choice instead of a byproduct of perceived emotional connection.
Trust should be based on:
Consistency: Does this person behave reliably over time?
Accountability: Are they willing to own their actions and submit to correction?
Competence: Do they demonstrate skill and knowledge in the domain they speak on?
Boundaries: Do they respect others, and do they understand the lines that need to be respected in the space they operate in?
These are not subjective emotional metrics, like what we are so used to using. They’re measurable and behavioral, and they should override whether someone makes us feel good.
One of the most trustworthy people I know is someone I work with from time to time but actively dislike. We aren’t buddies; we don’t ‘hang out,’ and our personalities are like two repelling magnets. You know what, though? I have a high degree of trust in him.
He ALWAYS, without fail, does what he says he will do.
He tells the truth in every circumstance.
He has a level of ethical and moral transparency that I find dependable.
Meanwhile, I have a friend who I’ve known for 20 years, who I like immensely. She validates my feelings, believes in my abilities, and makes me feel good about myself. She has also not really changed or grown one iota in that 20 years. I know this about her and I accept it; even though I like her, I also don’t mistake liking and emotional validation for trust. There are boundaries in place that allow me to go on liking her, without putting myself in some kind of weighted position where I am trusting someone who isn’t trustworthy.
In a culture where emotional resonance is valued above rational evaluation, we must resist the temptation to collapse liking into trust. We are risking our groups, our effectiveness, and our cause when we don’t know the difference.
Liking is a feeling. Trust is a choice.
Mistaking one for the other undermines both individual agency and collective strength. It makes us slaves to a transactional system where another of Cialdini’s principles comes into play: reciprocity. If you make me feel good about myself, I will give you trust. It’s a welcome mat for any bad actor who can figure out what your emotional cravings are.
Let us stop confusing charm for character. In every arena that matters, trust must be earned, not assumed.
By the way…yesterday I promised you a download, and here you are. This is the Trust System Audit. It’s geared for activism groups, preppers, or other groups that want to take a quick inventory of the systems in their dynamics. This will get you started. For more of a deep dive, reach out to me directly!
