Paolo Parigi Karen Cook Stanford University
This project investigates whether individuals can be made more trusting of others through the use of technology. The investigators will recruit participants from on-line companies operating in the sharing economy, i.e., from websites where users share tools, hospitality, pet sitting, and car rides. The broad research hypothesis is that trusting strangers on-line makes individuals more trusting in general and that there are two key mechanisms for developing trust online: (1) the reputation systems that these websites develop to facilitate interactions, and (2) the individual social networks that create communities of users with similar levels of trust. The assumption on which this research rests is that trust can be engineered, i.e., that the amount of interpersonal trust we have toward others is not determined exclusively by cultural factors, societal norms or family upbringing.
The investigators will conduct behavioral experiments and collect data on the participants in the study. The experiments will capture whether repeated, on-line interactions with strangers produce behavioral changes in the lives of the participants. Participants will be randomly assigned to two conditions and followed over time. In one condition, they will be playing against a simulated agent that will pose as a generic user, while in the other condition they will play against a simulated agent that will pose as a website member. By measuring differences in how participants play these games in the two conditions we will be able to assess changes in the evolution of their levels of trust toward others. A portion of the subjects recruited for these experiments will come from outside the United States. The study will be conducted in two countries, Romania and the Netherlands, because they represent societies with low and high levels of generalized trust, respectively. This will enable cross-cultural comparisons and an examination whether the mechanisms identified operate similarly under different cultural conditions, particularly in high and low trust societies. In addition to the behavioral experiments, the researchers will also analyze a number of sharing economy web-based communities.
Broader Impact
The research contributes to the sparse scholarly research to date on the mechanisms used to build trust where trust might not otherwise emerge because of weak or corrupt institutions or the prevalence of conditions that are not conducive to fostering trustworthy behavior. In general, this is also a problem for Internet-mediated interactions that must be resolved to gain the confidence of those who use this medium for exchanges or other forms of interaction. Furthermore, understanding the fundamental nature of these processes will be beneficial not only to society but also to those mandated to protect individuals from fraud and harm, as well as to those who hope to benefit in various ways from the capacity to connect people from very different walks of life and cultures. Research findings will contribute to a better understanding of whether such networks foster greater cultural understanding or a variety of other positive aims. Knowing how these types of network are formed, work, maintained and grow is very important for a well-functioning society, a growing economy, and effective governance.
