Trust in triads: Experience effects

Buskens et al. (2010; hereafter BRV) tested game-theoretic hypotheses about embeddedness effects on trust experimentally. We provide evidence from an extended replication of their experiment. The new experiment sheds light on how experience affects behavior in embedded Trust Games.     

Trust in triads: An experimental study

Pairs of trustors play finitely repeated Trust Games with the same trustee in a laboratory experiment. We study trustfulness of the trustor and trustworthiness of the trustee. We distinguish between learning and control effects on behavior. Learning effects are related to the trustor's information on past behavior of the trustee. Control effects are related to the trustor's opportunities for sanctioning a trustee in future interactions. Hypotheses on learning and control effects are derived from backward-looking learning models and from forward-looking models of strategic behavior. The design of the experiment, with respect to trustfulness, allows for disentangling learning effects from a trustor's own experience with the trustee and learning effects through third-party information. Also, the design enables disentangling control effects on trustworthiness and trustfulness through a trustor's own sanction opportunities and opportunities for third-party sanctions. We find evidence for learning and control effects. The trustor's own experiences, the experiences of the other trustor, as well as the trustor's own sanction opportunities affect trustfulness. We find evidence for control effects on trustworthiness, including effects arising from opportunities for third-party sanctions. However, there is no evidence for control effects through opportunities for third-party sanctions on trustfulness. This could indicate limited strategic rationality of trustors.     

Trust as risk and the foundation of investment value

Trust is an essential ingredient of the investment process because investing is complex, the world contains irreducible uncertainty, and humans are naturally predisposed to cooperate. Traditional financial models inappropriately treat trust as probability or implicitly ignore it. This paper argues that trust has both cognitive and affective attributes that make it an important determinant of perceived investment risk. Specifically, perceived risk varies inversely with trust. This paper also discusses how trust offers a logical and parsimonious explanation for many financial asset pricing anomalies. Trust is the unseen faith underlying investment value.     

Deterministic versus probabilistic consequences of trust and trustworthiness: An experimental investigation

There is overwhelming evidence of reciprocal behavior, driven by intentions. However, the role of consequences is less clear cut. Experimentally manipulating how efficient trust and reciprocity can be in deterministic and uncertain environments allows us to study how payoff consequences of trust and trustworthiness affect reciprocity. According to the results for our modified Investment Game, trustees reward trust more when trust is more efficient but do not adjust rewards when the efficiency of rewarding is varied. Furthermore, higher deterministic benefits result in higher levels of reciprocity for all trust levels, whereas an uncertain environment diminishes reciprocity.     

“90后”大学生网络信任建构过程研究

网络信任是随着网络时代的来临而出现的新的信任类型,是网络社交发展到一定阶段的后天产物。其发生主体是切实的社会个体在网络空间形塑的虚拟角色,发生情境是个体互动所处的具体网络空间,其建构过程大致经历了初建、维系与深化、破裂、走向现实几个阶段。网络信任的建构过程不断涉及个人的认知与判断,信任决定的修正依据是个体在网络社交过程中逐渐暴露出的信息。网络信任的发生概率非常低,仅极少数的信任获得了稳定发展,甚至转变为现实信任。     

Institutionalization of Trust as Response to Globalization: The Case of Consumer Cooperatives in South Korea

This paper explores an explanation which elaborates how individuals effectively enact and sustain trust in the sphere of social economy and the capability. I discuss how value employed by actors and the strategies and power relation in the socio-economic value sphere and focus on the function of ‘trust’ as the key mechanism of the interaction. This paper examine South Korean consumer cooperative Hansalim as a case of social economy which successfully institutionalize their system in competitive economic market arena.      

Trust in surveys and games – A methodological contribution on the influence of money and location

This paper explores methods to study trust. In a variety of settings, answers to survey questions and choices in a trust game are obtained from student sample pools. Some subjects are approached by mail and execute their task at home whereas others participate in classroom experiments. No differences between the results obtained by these methods are observed. Furthermore, one additional group plays the trust game with purely hypothetical payments, and another receives random lottery payments. This changes trust behavior dramatically, whereas trustworthiness is unaffected. Subjects without any financial incentives exhibit less trust and their trust choices are significantly correlated with survey trust answers. There is no such correlation for the corresponding choices with real payments.     

A cross-cultural investigation of consumer e-shopping adoption

This study examines how cultural values affect consumer decision-making with respect to e-commerce (on-line shopping) adoption in the United States and Korea. The findings suggest that cultural values are antecedents to perceived risk, perceived self-efficacy, and subjective norm. Furthermore, the findings indicate that while the overall behavioral mechanism underlying choice is similar for the two countries, there are differences in the relative importance of the factors determining consumers' intention to adopt e-commerce.     

Trust between individuals and groups: Groups are less trusting than individuals but just as trustworthy

We compare the behavior of groups and individuals in a two-person trust game. The first mover in this game, the sender, receives an endowment and can send any part of it to the responder; the amount sent is tripled, and the responder can then return to the sender any portion of the tripled sum. In a 2 × 2 design, the players in the roles of sender and responder are either individuals or groups of three players (who conduct face-to-face discussions to decide on a collective group strategy). We find that groups in the role of sender send smaller amounts than individuals, and expect lower returns. In particular, groups send nothing more often than individuals do (and are even more likely to do so when the responder is another group). Groups and individuals in the role of responder return on average the same fraction of the amount sent. Hence, we conclude that groups are less trusting than individuals, but just as trustworthy.     

Racial and Ethnic Determinants of Interracial and Ethnic Trust

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to discern which individual factors are associated with interracial/ethnic trust among a national probability sample of African Americans, Latinos, and non-Hispanic whites. Using national data from the 2000 Community Benchmark Survey, the multiple regression results indicate that, even after controlling for education and income, African Americans and Latinos reported significantly lower levels of interracial/ethnic trust than did non-Hispanic whites. Additionally, separate regression equations indicate that predictors associated with interracial/ethnic trust varied by racial and ethnic group. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Trust and partner selection in social networks: An experimentally grounded model

This article investigates the importance of the endogenous selection of partners for trust and cooperation in market exchange situations, where there is information asymmetry between investors and trustees. We created an experimental-data driven agent-based model where the endogenous link between interaction outcome and social structure formation was examined starting from heterogeneous agent behaviour. By testing various social structure configurations, we showed that dynamic networks lead to more cooperation when agents can create more links and reduce exploitation opportunities by free riders. Furthermore, we found that the endogenous network formation was more important for cooperation than the type of network. Our results cast serious doubt about the static view of network structures on cooperation and can provide new insights into market efficiency.     

Trust and recognition: a comparative study of client attitudes and workers' experiences in the welfare services

Since professional conduct is important in the lives of many people, trust and recognition between professionals and their clients are critical. Social professionals administer public resources on behalf of the welfare state, and their approaches and methods of intervention are mostly founded in current welfare policy. Despite this mandate, social professionals receive little acknowledgement and recognition. This article investigates the level of public trust in the Norwegian social services compared to the national insurance agencies, and to what extent the providers of these welfare services experience recognition and public approval. A central question is whether these aspects of external appreciation influence the professionals' motivation and feelings of accomplishment. Findings indicate that the social services receive less public support than the social insurance agencies, owing to the discretionary services provided and the stigma related to social assistance. The variation in institutional trust is reflected by the differences in workers' subjective experiences. That result notwithstanding, the service providers reveal a split view of themselves: while they experience themselves positively with respect to involvement and pride in their work, they also see themselves through the deprecating eyes of the public.     

Tracking phantastic objects: A computer algorithmic investigation of narrative evolution in unstructured data sources

We develop social network and “relative sentiment shift” analysis techniques to study how financial narratives influence financial markets. First, we analyze Reuters News articles focusing on narratives about Fannie Mae. Second, we analyze Broadband and Energy narratives in the Enron Corporation email database. Combining datasets we show that phantastic object narratives can be detected and tracked as they develop and spread through networks to lead to a disconnect between narrative and underlying “reality”. The methods may be applicable to other text datasets to create early warnings.     

残疾人创业的信任环境重构——基于团队特征的视角

推动残疾人成功创业已成为各国促进残疾人就业率提升的一个有效手段,但创业成功并非易事,残疾人创业所面临的信息沟通不畅、信任环境缺失等问题直接影响创业的成功率。本文通过构建相关变量的有调节效应的回归模型,深入探讨了影响残疾人创业的情景因素,研究结果显示,残疾人创业团队的外部信任环境重构和创业团队自信心的建立对创业成功有显著的正向影响。     

“Trust Me”: Differences in expressed and perceived trust relations in an organization

The possibility of resolving the tension between trust as a psychological condition and trust as a general organizing principle depends on assumptions about the convergence of expressed and perceived trust relations. In empirical organizational research these assumptions are frequently left implicit and only rarely modeled directly. Using data that we have collected on trust relations within the top management team of a multiunit industrial group we specify and estimate multivariate exponential random graph models (ERGMs) that reveal important differences in the structural logics underlying networks of expressed and perceived trust relations. Results confirm that trust induces awareness and produces expectations of reciprocity – features that are consistent with the view of trust as a general organizing principle. Results also show that networks of perceived trust relations are characterized by tendencies toward reciprocity and generalized giving of trust. When multivariate network effects are introduced, however, expressed trust relations no longer show a significant tendency toward reciprocation. Interpreted together these results suggest that: (i) the distribution of expressed and perceived trust relations differs; (ii) expressed trust relations in organizations are more hierarchical than are perceived trust relations, and (iii) expressed and perceived trust relations need to be modeled jointly. These findings suggest caution in the adoption and interpretation of trust only as a general organizing principle, and suggest that psychological mechanisms also play an important role in the making and breaking of trust relations within organizations.     

Trust in humans and robots: Economically similar but emotionally different

Trust-based interactions with robots are increasingly common in the marketplace, workplace, on the road, and in the home. However, a valid concern is that people may not trust robots as they do humans. While trust in fellow humans has been studied extensively, little is known about how people extend trust to robots. Here we compare trust-based investments and self-reported emotions from across three nearly identical economic games: human-human trust games, human-robot trust games, and human-robot trust games where the robot decision impacts another human. Robots in our experiment mimic humans: they are programmed to make reciprocity decisions based on previously observed behaviors by humans in analogous situations. We find that people invest similarly in humans and robots. By contrast the social emotions (i.e., gratitude, anger, pride, guilt) elicited by the interactions (but not the non-social emotions) differed across human and robot trust games. Emotional reactions depended on the trust game interaction, and how another person was affected.     

Trust games: A meta-analysis

We collect data from 162 replications of the Berg, Dickhaut, and McCabe Investment game (the “trust” game) involving more than 23,000 participants. We conduct a meta-analysis of these games in order to identify the effect of experimental protocols and geographic variation on this popular behavioral measure of trust and trustworthiness. Our findings indicate that the amount sent in the game is significantly affected by whether payment is random, and whether play is with a simulated counterpart. Trustworthiness is significantly affected by the amount by which the experimenter multiplies the amount sent, whether subjects play both roles in the experiment, and whether the subjects are students. We find robust evidence that subjects send less in trust games conducted in Africa than those in North America.     

Sex differences in trust and trustworthiness: A meta-analysis of the trust game and the gift-exchange game

We present a meta-analytic review of the literature on sex differences in the trust game (174 effect sizes) and the related gift-exchange game (35 effect sizes). Based on parental investment theory and social role theory we expected men to be more trusting and women to be more trustworthy. Indeed, men were more trusting in the trust game (g = 0.22), yet we found no significant sex difference in trust in the gift-exchange game (g = 0.15). Regarding trustworthiness, we found no significant sex difference in the trust game (g = −0.04), and we found men, not women, to be more trustworthy in the gift-exchange game (g = 0.33). These results suggest that men send more money than women do when their money is going to be multiplied, thereby creating an efficiency gain. This so-called “male multiplier effect” may be explained by a stronger psychological tendency in men to acquire resources.     

“We Actually Trust the Community:” Examining the Dynamics of a Nonprofit Funding Relationship in New Zealand

Funding relationships in nonprofit management are increasingly defined by a philosophy of rational management, characterized by measurement of outputs and benchmarking, which represents an audit culture system (Burnley, Matthews, & McKenzie, 2005). There is concern that these approaches are constantly undermining the mission of community service nonprofit organizations (Darcy, 2002). In this research, we analyzed the management of funding relationships by examining dynamics within a nonprofit funding relationship in New Zealand. Through focus groups we explored the relationship between 17 representatives from nonprofit organizations and four Board members of a funding Trust. The management of this funding relationship was characterized by an appreciation of the diverse nature of nonprofit organizations, a balance between trust and control, and communication. We suggest that elements of these dynamics could be incorporated into nonprofit funding relationships in order to challenge an over-reliance on audit culture systems, and to re-establish relationships characterized by interaction between nonprofit organizations and their funders. Finally, we call for future research in this area.     

A comparison of email networks and off-line social networks: A study of a medium-sized bank

Recently there has been a surge in the availability of online data concerning the connections between people, and these online data are now widely used to map the social structure of communities. There has been little research, however, on how these new types of relational data correspond to classical measures of social networks. To fill this gap, we contrast the structure of an email network with the underlying friendship, communication, and advice seeking networks. Our study is an explorative case study of a bank, and our data contains emails among employees and a survey of the ego networks of the employees. Through calculating correlations with QAP standard errors and estimating exponential random graph (ERG) models, we find that although the email network is related to the survey-based social networks, email networks are also significantly different: while off-line social networks are strongly shaped by gender, tenure, and hierarchical boundaries, the role of these boundaries are much weaker in the email network.