Diagnose which trust dimension is broken before trying to repair

Name the specific trust assessment that failed — then address that one, not trust in general.

Why it works

When trust breaks down, the instinct is to apologize for "not being trustworthy" — a global statement that addresses none of the four dimensions precisely. Feltman’s insight is that each dimension fails for different reasons and requires different repair. Sincerity failures require honesty correction; reliability failures require behavioral follow-through; competence failures require capability building or role clarification; care failures require visible alignment of interests. Generic trust repair misses the specific lever.

How to do it

1. When trust feels damaged, ask: "Which of the four dimensions is the real problem — sincerity, reliability, competence, or care?"
2. If you are not sure, ask the other person directly: "What specifically did I do or not do that affected your trust in me?"
3. Match your repair attempt to the dimension: a commitment (reliability), an honest statement (sincerity), a demonstration of skill (competence), or a visible action in their interest (care).
4. Don’t offer all four apologies for all four dimensions — specificity signals that you actually understand what happened.

Evidence

Trust repair research consistently finds that targeted repair attempts (addressing the specific violation) outperform general apologies; the effectiveness of the Feltman framework’s dimensional approach is consistent with this finding. Kim and colleagues show the repair move must match the violation type — apology restores competence-based trust while denial better restores integrity-based trust — direct evidence that diagnosing which dimension broke changes what actually works. (mechanistic)

Feltman’s four-dimension model is a practitioner framework; trust repair research uses different taxonomies. The directional finding (specific outperforms general) is well supported, but exact dimension labels are Feltman’s.

Sources

• Kim, Dirks & Cooper (2009), repairing trust through specific versus general apologies, Journal of Applied Psychology
• Kim, P. H., Ferrin, D. L., Cooper, C. D., & Dirks, K. T. (2004). Removing the shadow of suspicion: The effects of apology versus denial for repairing competence- versus integrity-based trust violations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(1), 104–118.
• Kim, P. H., Dirks, K. T., & Cooper, C. D. (2009). The repair of trust: A dynamic bilateral perspective and multilevel conceptualization. Academy of Management Review, 34(3), 401–422.

Common mistake

Repairing the wrong dimension — offering to try harder (reliability repair) when the actual problem is that the other person doesn’t believe you care about their interests (care failure).