These two regions of the brain process our reactions to the world differently. They are motivated to action by different incentives and have distinctive native languages. For example, the amygdala responds in nanoseconds to the facial features of an oncoming stranger to determine whether or not to distrust. By contrast, the prefrontal cortex takes its time to engage, while it curates a list of reasons one might begin to trust. The prefrontal cortex responds to trust symbols like a uniform or a religious icon, while the amygdala “hears” warning signals, alerting us to what the amygdala views as high-risk traits, such as covering up with a hoodie in broad daylight or standing too close for comfort. We must point out, and will discuss further later, that sometimes our amygdala decides to warn us about something that is not actually a danger because of a previous unsafe or undesirable experience. In addition to trust and distrust operating in different parts of the brain, gender, personality type, past trauma, generation, race, wealth status, and other demographic factors nuance how we interpret, feel, and respond. Men and women trust and distrust differently. Thus, when trust is broken and in need of repair, each gender looks for different iconography for restoration. Similarly, different personalities respond to triggers of trust and distrust according to their type. Someone who grew up in the city looks for different markers of trustworthiness than someone who grew up in a rural area, and on and on. We’ll talk more about those differences in Chapter 5. A Complex Trust Crisis? Maybe more than ever we are confronted with complex situations that require both trust and distrust. In conjunction with rapidly accelerating technologies, over the last hundred years in the West we have seen tectonic cultural shifts, blurring our trust
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