Jason D’Cruz, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in philosophy at the University at Albany, spoke Monday about the importance of trust in interpersonal relationships. The presentation was part of the University of Wisconsin Information School’s Speaker Series. There are two more talks this semester April 3 and 24.

D’Cruz introduced his talk as “trust, intimacy, security and courage.” He explained his approach to trust as a contrast to agential expansion, which views trust as a means to expand the ability of individuals through their relationships with others.

D’Cruz used the example of someone dependent on a caretaker being able to trust that their caretaker’s replacement would be just as capable of taking care of them and enabling their normal life cadence. Trust enables continuity in life outside of immediate agency, D’Cruz said.

A conversation between two people shows the intimate side of trust, D’Cruz said. The conversation occurs out of autotelic personal inquiry, or for the sake of discovery between people. It requires trust that neither participant is completely knowledgeable of themselves or the other person in the conversation. According to D’Cruz, a conversation with mutual trust can reveal new understandings of both the self and the other.

“This kind of activity is impossible without deep unguardedness towards each other, without deep trust,” D’Cruz said.

D’Cruz said the synthesis of these aspects allows people to be spontaneous. Trust enables people to feel secure, participate in intimate conversation and work creatively. He pointed to research called Project Aristotle from Google’s creative groups to illustrate his point.

With Project Aristotle, Google aimed to figure out which creative teams were the most effective. They initially believed that the best team composition was high performers paired with experienced managers and given no resource restraints. Research actually showed the most effective aspect of a team was psychological safety, where team members were able to propose ideas without fear of ridicule or embarrassment from their peers, D’Cruz said.

D’Cruz finished the talk speaking about the relationship between courage and trust. Courage comes with accepting the dangers inherent in trusting someone and accurately assessing the risk incurred by doing so. The relationship is not straight forward, as someone who has experienced a large violation of trust may be incredibly courageous in extending even a little D’Cruz said.

“Courage is this mean between recklessness and cowardice,” D’Cruz said. “The magnitude of risk that trust represents must be indexed to a person’s vulnerability and precarity.”