Trust Me, I'm Emotional

Trust Me, I'm Emotional

From TrustTalk - It's all about Trust by Severin de Wit

April 23, 2026 · 20 min · Episode 134

About this episode

The episode discusses the role of emotions in trust and decision-making, challenging the notion that emotions cloud judgment.

We tend to distrust people who lead with their emotions. In business, in politics, in negotiation. Someone who gets angry, who shows empathy, who wears their feelings openly is seen as a liability. Not quite serious. Possibly dangerous. Our guest today disagrees. Quite fundamentally. He has spent years studying how people actually make decisions — under pressure, in competition, in cooperation. And what he finds is that emotions don't cloud judgment. They are part of how judgment works. Trust is not a calculation with feelings getting in the way. Trust is a feeling — one that shapes the calculation from the start. He has conducted experiments showing that a single hormone can make people more trusting than they should be. How mistrust becomes self-fulfilling. And how a toxic workplace doesn't just harm the people inside it, it spreads outward into society. He calls it social pollution. Our guest is Eyal Winter, Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the author of Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions Are More Rational Than We Think.

People in this episode

Host: Severin de Wit

Guest: Eyal Winter

Topics covered

  • emotions
  • trust
  • decision making
  • business
  • social pollution
  • workplace culture

Keywords

  • trust
  • emotions
  • decision making
  • Eyal Winter
  • social pollution
  • workplace culture
  • Feeling Smart

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Books & works: Feeling Smart: Why Our Emotions Are More Rational Than We Think

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