Credibility is accumulated slowly and spent quickly.

Belief in a person is built out of a long series of small confirmations, none of which is memorable on its own. It takes years, and it can be undone by one demonstration that the pattern was not reliable. That asymmetry is unfair and it is also how minds work, because a single contradiction is more informative than a hundred confirmations. What took a decade can go in an afternoon.

When a shortcut is available, weigh it against the balance you have accumulated rather than against the immediate gain. Most credibility is lost in situations that seemed too small to matter. Treat the small ones as the whole thing.