The Shared Antecedents of Trust and Distrust

The relationship between trust and distrust is understudied. Resultingly, it is unclear whether the antecedents of trust are similar or different from the antecedents of distrust. Commonly found antecedents of trust include characteristics of the interviewee (trustor), the other party (trustee), their relationship, and the situation. Using semi-structured, qualitative interviews and card sorting with 53 individuals, we examined whether antecedents of distrust were the same as antecedents of trust found in the literature. To allow for different antecedents to emerge, we separately asked interviewees to explain their trust and distrust in others. The results showed that trust and distrust were based on judgments of similar categories of antecedents and appeared to form a series of bipolar comparisons. We discuss how the results validate prior trust research and highlight four methodological considerations that could improve future research on trust and distrust in natural resource management settings.