Abstract
The literature on trust seems to have reached a consensus that appropriately calibrated trust in humans or machines is highly desirable; miscalibrated (i.e., over- or under-) trust has been thought to only have negative consequences (i.e., over-reliance or under-utilization). While not invalidating the general idea of trust calibration, a published computational cognitive model of trust in strategic interaction predicts that some local and temporary violations of the trust calibration principle are critical for sustained success in strategic situations characterized by interdependence and uncertainty (e.g., trust game, prisoner’s dilemma, and Hawk-dove). This paper presents empirical and computational modeling work aimed at testing the predictions of under- and over-trust in an extension of the trust game, the multi-arm trust game, that captures some important characteristics of real-world interpersonal and human-machine interactions, such as the ability to choose when and with whom to interact among multiple agents. As predicted by our previous model, we found that, under conditions of increased trust necessity, participants actively reconstructed their trust-investment portfolios by discounting their trust in their previously trusted counterparts and attempting to develop trust with the counterparts that they previously distrusted. We argue that studying these exceptions of the principle of trust calibration might be critical for understanding long-term trust calibration in dynamic environments.
Highlights
AND BACKGROUNDTrust is generally defined as “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party” (Mayer et al, 1995, p. 712) or “the attitude that an agent will help achieve an individual’s goals in a situation characterized by uncertainty and vulnerability” (Lee and See, 2004, p. 54)
Given that trust development is a closed-loop, dynamic, and bidirectional process, trustworthiness may not be independent of trust
The only significant difference we found was a faster rate of trust reduction for the animacy condition as compared to the inanimacy condition when the confederate agents employed the neutral trustworthiness strategy
Summary
Trust is generally defined as “the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party” (Mayer et al, 1995, p. 712) or “the attitude that an agent will help achieve an individual’s goals in a situation characterized by uncertainty and vulnerability” (Lee and See, 2004, p. 54). If a trustor attempts to interact with a trustee in the trust game (Berg et al, 1995) and the trustee is unavailable to interact with the trustor, the model predicts a small decrement in trust, even though no evidence of untrustworthiness is observed This is a case of under-trust, another type of violation of the trust calibration principle. Trustors with higher cognitive abilities were able to develop and benefit from higher levels of reciprocal trust, which in turn reinforced and maintained higher levels of trustworthiness in their counterparts. Studying these exceptions of the principle of trust calibration might be critical for understanding long-term trust and trust calibration in dynamic environments. The use of confederate agents in this study allowed us to manipulate the three trustees’ trustworthiness levels and frequency of interaction with the human participant
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