Opinion: The Neuroscience Of Trust: How Brands Can Benefit From The Brain’s Decision-Making Process.
Trust is often described as an emotion. But in neuroscience, trust is more than that. It’s a cognitive state underpinned by specific neural pathways and chemical processes that determine how we assess safety, credibility and intention. For health and wellness brands, this distinction matters. In a space where people are making decisions that directly impact their bodies and identities, trust isn’t just a soft metric. It’s the foundation of consumer engagement, loyalty and long-term brand equity.
This article explores the neurobiology of trust and offers actionable insights for brand building. In an industry crowded with scepticism and noise, those who understand how the brain makes decisions and design their brand accordingly will stand apart.
How trust works in the brain
Neuroscientific research shows that trust is shaped by an intricate network of brain systems responsible for threat detection, evaluation and prediction (Rilling & Sanfey, 2010). In interpersonal settings, the amygdala plays a key role. It rapidly assesses social risk, particularly when encountering unfamiliar faces or ambiguous signals. But when it comes to brands, the brain uses a different strategy.
A 2017 study by Javor et al. published in the European Journal of Neuroscience revealed that brand trustworthiness does not trigger the same amygdala activation seen with facial trust cues. Instead, it engages areas involved in cognitive appraisal: the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the lateral and medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These regions help the brain assess risk, reward, consistency, and values, essential components in long-term trust decisions. Additionally, the insula, which integrates emotional and bodily signals, also plays a role, particularly when decisions are ambiguous or high-stakes (Craig, 2009). This suggests that brand trust is not just about rational processing; it also involves gut-level judgements.
And then there is oxytocin. While it’s widely known for mediating interpersonal trust, emerging studies by Fürst and colleagues and economist Paul Zak suggest that oxytocin also reduces defensiveness and enhances openness and willingness to connect, even in non-social contexts. In a brand setting, this translates to attachment. When people feel emotionally and cognitively safe, they’re more open to connection, even with abstract entities like brands (Park et al., 2010).
Why consistency feels safe to the brain
At its core, trust helps the brain manage uncertainty. Two key mental shortcuts, namely (a) familiarity heuristic and (b) confirmation bias, illustrate how people neurologically default to what feels safe and congruent.
As shown in decision-making research by Schwikert and Curran, the familiarity heuristic drives us to favour what we’ve seen before, regardless of objective merit. Familiarity reduces the neural load. When visual cues, tone and systems are predictable, the brain doesn’t have to work as hard. It rewards this fluency by creating a sense of ease, which translates to safety (Reber et al., 2004).
For brands, this means that consistency is a required framework. A clear brand identity, repeated across time and touchpoints, becomes embedded in the brain’s recognition systems. Over time, this reduces decision fatigue and builds implicit trust.
Confirmation bias is a tendency to prioritise information that aligns with existing beliefs. In the healthcare context, decisions often reflect personal values and identity, be it how we eat, sleep or train. Brands that affirm rather than correct these values lower psychological defences. Research by Sherman and Cohen demonstrates that aligning information with a person’s identity makes belief change more likely.
Trust grows through resonance, not confrontation or pandering. When a consumer feels seen, understood and guided rather than challenged, trust becomes easier to build and loyalty more likely to follow.
Where most health brands go wrong
Too many health brands conflate authority with trust. They highlight clinical credentials, hire medical advisors or peer-reviewed citations. These are important credibility signals. But trust goes beyond accuracy and credibility.
Neuroscience literature on decision-making (Yoon et al., 2012) suggests that trust also encompasses clarity, consistency and coherence. If a brand experience is cognitively demanding, disjointed or laden with jargon, the brain flags it as a risk even if the information is credible and true.
This is where brands lose people. Overpromising, cluttered messaging and generic wellness clichés trigger the brain’s threat systems. The amygdala is alerted. This unease may never reach conscious awareness, but it shapes decisions and quietly erodes trust.
Case studies: How Zoe and Whoop earn trust
Zoe, the personalised nutrition company co-founded by gut microbiome researcher Tim Spector, offers a masterclass in neuroscience-informed branding. Rather than broadcasting certainty, Zoe embraces scientific humility. It communicates evolving knowledge, shares data transparently and integrates user narrative alongside the evidence. This reduces the threat and increases engagement in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which, as studies show, is involved in long-term value-based decisions. Real-time data is framed as exploration rather than prescription, and it invites users into a collaborative process. People feel seen, not instructed.
Whoop, the wearable performance tracker, builds trust by offering users control. Access to personal sleep and recovery data supports identity-level decision-making. When people feel ownership over their data, they are more likely to trust the brand behind it. Whoop avoids exaggerated claims. It’s careful about communicating what it can and can’t do. This kind of honesty sends a strong safety signal to the brain.
Both brands succeed because they treat trust as a cognitive experience, not a marketing add-on.
What forward-thinking brands are doing differently.
Trust is not a campaign. It’s a neurocognitive state, earned through design, delivery and discourse. Health brands that understand this and operationalise this will thrive.
To build trust, brands must:
Reduce the cognitive load through consistent identity, tone and user experience.
Signal clarity with transparent, clear demystified science.
Affirm personal values instead of correcting behaviours.
Offer control to enhance self-agency and data ownership
Health brands do more than just sell products or services. They shape how people think about their bodies, choices and futures. This moves trust from a transactional variable to a long-term investment. Brand trust sits in the mind.
References:
(Bud) Craig, A. How do you feel—now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nat Rev Neurosci 10, 59–70 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2555
Fürst, A., Thron, J., Scheele, D. et al. The neuropeptide oxytocin modulates consumer brand relationships. Sci Rep 5, 14960 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep14960
Javor, A., Kindermann, H., Koschutnig, K., & Ischebeck, A. (2018). The neural correlates of trustworthiness evaluations of faces and brands: Implications for behavioral and consumer neuroscience. European Journal of Neuroscience, 48(6), 2322–2332. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.14134
Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs, M., Zak, P. J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. (2005). Oxytocin increases trust in humans. Nature, 435(7042), 673–676. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03701
Reber, R., Schwarz, N., & Winkielman, P. (2004). Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure: Is Beauty in the Perceiver’s Processing Experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4), 364–382. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3
Rilling, J. K., & Sanfey, A. G. (2010). The Neuroscience of Social Decision-Making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62(1), 23–48. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131647
Schwikert, S. R., & Curran, T. (2014). Familiarity and recollection in heuristic decision making. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(6), 2341–2365. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000024
The neuroscience of trust. (2017, January 1). Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2017/01/the-neuroscience-of-trust
Yoon, C., Gonzalez, R., Bechara, A., Berns, G. S., Dagher, A. A., Dubé, L., Huettel, S. A., Kable, J. W., Liberzon, I., Plassmann, H., Smidts, A., & Spence, C. (2012). Decision neuroscience and consumer decision making. Marketing Letters, 23(2), 473–485. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-012-9188-z
