Distrust self-reinforces by withholding the information cooperation would provide

Evidence

There is a further implication of the fact that, if I generally distrust people, I will discover little about their actual trustworthiness because I will choose not to interact with them. It follows that I will have to make choices with less information to go on than other, more optimistic people have. Although there might be specific instances in which information is deleterious to my well-being, it is generally beneficial to have more information about one’s circumstances. It is not an intention, but merely an effect, of distrust that it can put one at a relative disadvantage on this score. Hence in a society with pockets of distrust, such as in hostile ghettos or in the cases of individuals with particularly bad experience of misplaced or undeveloped trust, some people will have to act from crippled knowledge. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 604

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s Hardin integration: distrust produces crippled knowledge, and in Saramago blindness produces crippled knowledge across the whole population, triggering mass distrust. — connects to: Neoliberal abandonment forces a hardened self-reliance that blocks trust and long-term commitment — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1934
• QUESTION: Is the general ‘more information is beneficial’ claim robust, and what exceptions does Hardin concede (‘specific instances’)?