Are people trustworthy? Explain your answer.

Most "in-depth" answer:
Thats unanswerable!! Everyone is different! Individual Differences in the person to be trusted: In general, I think you can trust that most peope are not going to try to bring physical harm to you or go out of their way to screw you over.However, most people will do something to negatively affect you if it brings them ENOUGH benefit. The benefit factor is the crux. Also, most people will only do something to negatively affect you if they think you will never find out about it. If they think you'll find out,usually the benefit has to be pretty darn high for them to follow through with the "bad deed." Properties of behaviors that break trust: Usually people can be trusted to not do things that will bring you visible harm. i.e. blackeyes, trip you, or "pants" you (remember that from middle school?). But they will do things to bring you non-visible pain... again, only if there is enough benefit and you won't find out. For example, people will say bad things about you behind your back to make themselves look better or to make themsleves look interesting... but only if theythink you won't find out. Individual differences in the person doing the trusting: some people trust everyone, while others don't trust anyone. Usually both these extremes attract the least trustworthy people, for reasons that I don't understand.

Joanne's answer:
I think that most people are pretty trustworthy, given the right situation. For example, studies have shown that if you ask a stranger to watch your bag or your purse for a few minutes while you go do something, in most cases, that stranger will not only NOT steal your bag but will actively pursue/say something/chase down anyone who DOES try to steal it! Of course, the flip side of that is if you put most people in a situation where they are very motivated to break your trust (i.e., if they don't steal your purse, they won't have enough money to take the bus home) and you give them at least some sense of security that they will not be caught, I would bet that most people would go ahead and steal. Never underestimate the power of the situation, my friends!

And the other answers:

1. Some are. sadly it takes a while to determine the depth of the info you can trust with someone. i usually keep things superficial at work. no one needs to know mybusiness. as for those i keep as friends, i believe and trust in them all.

2. I think that people are inherently trustworthy. While there are obviously deceitful people, I think that they are more of the exception than the rule. Of course, I get burned quite often (not so much anymore, but in the past), so...either my philosophy is way off, or I have just met many of those few exceptions.

3. Some are and some are not. It's as simple as that.

4. Not entirely. I trust people to a certain extent, but I don't handout keys to my house.

5. I think they want to be for the most part but it's becomes such "it's-all-about-me" that I don't think so anymore. Used to be a handshake was all that was needed - now you have to have an office full of lawyers just to be sure you are covered.

6. I feel most people are trustworthy most of the time, and everyone is untrustworthy some of the time.

7. Well, that kind of depends on how you mean "trustworthy". I know people who can be trusted with a life, or just a secret, or people who can be trusted simply to look after their own moment-to-moment interests. I think that trust has a lot to do with expectations. As far as trusting people to do what they SAY they are going to do - I would say that most people would be trustworthy around 75% of the time. I say that because I believe that most people have more-or-less good intentions (at least as far as they see things). But, some people are more successful than others when it comes to acting on those intentions. Even the best of us fall short sometimes.