Trust, Rapport & Psychological Safety
Parent: Applied Human Psychology · researched 2026-05-31T20:36:37.107Z· 27 sources · 9 concepts · skill trust-and-psychological-safety
Three distinct but interlocking literatures govern professional relationships. Trust is dyadic willingness to be vulnerable. Rapport is the moment-to-moment relational tone. Psychological safety is a
Trust, Rapport & Psychological Safety
- Three distinct but interlocking literatures govern professional relationships. Trust is dyadic willingness to be vulnerable. Rapport is the moment-to-moment relational tone. Psychological safety is a group-level climate belief. They are not the same thing - build all three deliberately. [source]
- This skill is about trust between people. For trust in machines/automation (over-reliance, algorithm aversion, calibration), use human-ai-interaction-psychology. [source]
- Meta-finding across all three: trust and safety are slow to build and fast to destroy (Slovic). Match every move to that asymmetry. [source]
- Deep detail, the repair decision aid, the full 7-item scale, and source citations live in references/trust-rapport-safety-detail.md. Load it when you need specifics. [source]
2. Trust violation & repair
- See the 6-step repair decision aid in the reference file. [source]
4. Psychological safety (team-level)
- Safety is NOT niceness. Pair high safety with high accountability/standards (Edmondson's learning zone). Never sell it as "be nice." And trust is NOT blindness - mature trust is calibrated by evidence. [source]
Caveats (knowledge gaps from the research)
- Edmondson 7-item exact wording varies across secondary reproductions; the version in refs is the most common, but verify against the 1999 ASQ original before any formal measurement. [source]
- Team positive:negative ratio - the marital 5:1 is well replicated; the team threshold rests partly on Losada's math, later critiqued (Brown, Sokal & Friedman 2013). The direction (high performers run positive-heavy) holds; treat a specific team number as heuristic, not law. [source]
Reusable prompt — relationship diagnosis & action plan
- Paste this, fill the brackets, and the assistant will diagnose against these frameworks and return concrete next moves. [source]
Children
- Interpersonal Trust Models (ABI / cognitive-affective / Trust Equation) (frontier)
- Swift Trust in Temporary Teams (frontier)
- Trust Violation & Repair (competence vs integrity) (frontier)
- Trust Asymmetry (slow-build / fast-break) (frontier)
- Rapport (similarity, mere-exposure, synchrony) (frontier)
- Active-Constructive Responding & Gottman Ratio (frontier)
- Psychological Safety (Edmondson) (frontier)
- Four Stages of Psychological Safety (Clark) (frontier)
- Psychological Safety vs Trust (frontier)
Frontier under this node: Active-Constructive Responding & Gottman Ratio, Four Stages of Psychological Safety (Clark), Interpersonal Trust Models (ABI / cognitive-affective / Trust Equation), Psychological Safety (Edmondson), Psychological Safety vs Trust, Rapport (similarity, mere-exposure, synchrony), Swift Trust in Temporary Teams, Trust Asymmetry (slow-build / fast-break), Trust Violation & Repair (competence vs integrity)