Survival Signals: Trust In An Intimate Relationships

Trust is also known as the confidence one person places in another and it is the true foundation of a relationship, so much so that if it was not present the relationship would have a much greater chance of breaking apart. One of the seven ways that intimate relationships differ from casual relationships is trust because once it is understood that partners can trust each other the stability of the relationship and the intimacy increases. There are four types of attachment styles that coincide with trust that adults can have which are known as secure, preoccupied, fearful and dismissing. An attachment style can be established during childhood and leads out until you are an adult. In my own personal experience, I have a preoccupied attachment
I already have trust problems so when I evaluate the survival signals, I will not be as hesitant to follow my gut feeling. Since secure attachment styles can trust easily, they might be more tempted to believe the suspect is innocent and ignore the survival signals they see. It is easier for them to ignore their gut feeling and believe others. The survival signals stated in chapter 4 (DeBecker, 1997) are forced teaming, charm and niceness, too many details, typecasting, loan sharking, unsolicited promise and discounting the word “no”. Some of these survival signals are more apparent than others and it gets harder to apprehend them as trust for others goes up. For example, charm and niceness can be tricky to figure out for someone with a secure attachment style. They already have high self-esteem and they would believe the things the suspect is trying to say to them. But on the other hand, with people of a preoccupied style it is harder to believe compliments and therefore easier to discover when someone is trying to “charm” them instead of being “charming”. Likewise, discounting the word “no” is easier to notice because it will be repetitive and usually any attachment style can identify this. Unsolicited promises are harder for me to believe because I have high anxiety and I cannot trust easily. This means when someone makes a promise I am not quick in believing it. I try to analyze the promise more and see if it is believable and can be done. However, the survival signal of “too many details” might be a problem for me because I try to have intimate relationships with people around me and might mistake it for someone trying to be intimate with me. Typecasting could also be influenced badly because I try to make sure the people around me like me and when someone says something negative about me it affects me a lot. When it comes to me, after reading