In some cases a post hoc inference will suffice; it might even be that ignorance of particular aspects does no harm, i.e. does not obstruct progress towards trust, but this can hardly be decided without empirical research. However, the process may become more liable to break down where relevant circumstances are not known, even if the requisite behaviour has been followed in the initial phases. It can also become more liable to break down through an excess of knowledge, such as when the participants mutually infer that the process is being employed in order to build up trust. For in such instances, motives are unavoidably put in question, and such questioning can easily turn into distrust.

XREF: Echoes the paradox where explicit attempts to build trust undermine it — similar to how self-conscious trust or commercializing intimacy generates suspicion.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 196