The Difference Between Trust and Respect

I've been raised by two parents who have very opposite views on how an individual deserves to be treated based on the minimal knowledge that you have of them while first getting to know them.

My mom believes that you should always respect and trust people (or institutions) when you first encounter them. Of course a decent amount of signals are included in this idealistic perspective to avoid naivety, say, not simply investing in a company because the person says it's a good investment. My mother would instead research the company herself and then determine the credibility of the person/statement as he is asking for a leap of faith and my mom is not willing, intelligently, to run that risk.

My dad believes that you should neither respect nor trust an individual until they demonstrate their competence. I suppose that my father's undergraduate/graduate students have suffered due to his suspicious demeanor but there are clear benefits as well. First of all, by making people earn your respect, they feel that you genuinely appreciate them because they are aware of what it looks like when you don't and they may feel accomplished as a result. Making people garner your trust ensures that you weed out danger. You understand to which level you can trust the individual and thereby avoid placing yourself in a vulnerable position.

The drawback is that people tend to treat you in a more compassionate/friendly manner if you choose to open up your vulnerabilities first. Therefore, social adeptness could be defined in this category as appropriately walking the line of giving/withholding respect and trust. My personal suggestion in getting people to trust you is to slowly open up about small things and then escalate. The same tends to happen for the person receiving your openness and along the way, you can evaluate whether the person is worth trusting. Since most people want to be on good terms with one another, they will continue to trust each other more as they get to know each other better and voila, a friendship happens.