The Trust Issue Is Huge

Something about reading outdoors during Friday's wonderful weather made this week's readings scream out to me. I see how and why trust effects behavior dramatically. I liked the paper I found on-line entitled Empathy and online interpersonal trust: A fragile relationship. It suggests that an accurate portrayal of empathy builds trust when followed up by a supportive attitude, but an accurate portrayal of empathy builds relative distrust when followed up by minimizing comments. The negative trust effect of dismissing an empathetic issue is even stronger than the cases with or without support if empathy is not demonstrated by a communicator (though perhaps not significantly so).

One of the benefits of going through a bad life event is the opportunity to empathize with others. CMCs show great promise in spreading that empathy and empowering individuals to deal with emotional baggage brought on by the experience. Of interest is how to tie this consideration of empathy with the issue of deception and what thoughts that gives us of creative writers who offer up fictional stories that we accept for entertainment at face value without requiring details about the writer's personal life story.