You are driving on the highway and get pulled over for speeding when you were barely going over the speed limit. You know that every other car around you was going at least 15 mph faster than you. Are you thinking, “I was speeding so I deserve this ticket.”? More likely you were thinking, “Not fair! Why me? I was the slowest car on the road!” or worse, you could be thinking you were targeted because of your ethnicity. This unfair exchange can reduce trust in the system and activate a threat response resulting in disgust, anger, decreased empathy, and schadenfreude.

Now imagine you are getting in line at the bakery to buy a blueberry muffin and you kindly let someone in front of you. That person ends up buying the last blueberry muffin. They hear you order it and realizing you let them go in front of you they let you have the muffin and buy something else. A fair exchange such as this activates the reward system of the brain.

Trust is most closely aligned with the current move toward justice and equity, a sense that we can participate in a culture led by common values and rules (i.e. laws created for all). When this is not the case, you might feel unsafe (because you are in a space where the same rules that apply to you don’t apply to someone else). Some behaviors that can help to maximize feelings of fairness include:

• Setting clear rules/expectations (along with the rationale for setting them).

• Addressing behaviors that go against the shared rules/expectations.

• Being consistent with following up on agreed upon behaviors/actions.

• Matching desired behaviors/accomplishments.