Trusting Strangers in the Sharing Economy

斯坦福大学这个项目调查是否可以通过使用技术使个人更加信任他人。调查人员将从经营共享经济的在线公司招募参与者，即用户共享工具、招待、宠物看护和乘车的网站。广泛的研究假设是，在线信任陌生人使个人总体上更信任，并且有两个关键机制来发展在线信任：(1)这些网站为促进互动而开发的声誉系统；(2)创建具有相似信任水平的用户社区的个人社交网络。这项研究所基于的假设是信任可以被设计，也就是说，我们对他人的人际信任程度并不完全由文化因素、社会规范或家庭教养决定。研究人员将对研究参与者进行行为实验并收集数据。这些实验将捕捉到与陌生人重复的在线互动是否会在参与者的生活中产生行为变化。参与者将被随机分配到两种情况下，并在一段时间内进行随访。在一种情况下，他们将与一个冒充普通用户的模拟代理进行比赛，而在另一种情况下，他们将与一个冒充网站会员的模拟代理进行比赛。通过测量参与者在两种情况下如何玩这些游戏的差异，我们将能够评估他们对他人信任水平的演变变化。这些实验招募的一部分受试者将来自美国以外的国家。这项研究将在罗马尼亚和荷兰这两个国家进行，因为这两个国家分别代表了普遍信任水平较低和较高的社会。这将使跨文化比较和检查所确定的机制是否在不同的文化条件下运作相似，特别是在高信任和低信任的社会。除了行为实验，研究人员还将分析一些基于网络的共享经济社区。更广泛的影响该研究有助于迄今为止关于建立信任机制的稀少学术研究，因为薄弱或腐败的机构或不利于培养信任行为的条件的普遍存在，信任可能不会出现。总的来说，这也是互联网媒介互动的一个问题，必须解决这个问题，以获得使用这种媒介进行交流或其他形式互动的人的信任。此外，了解这些过程的基本性质不仅有利于社会，也有利于那些被授权保护个人免受欺诈和伤害的人，以及那些希望以各种方式从连接来自不同行业和文化的人们的能力中受益的人。研究结果将有助于更好地理解这种网络是否促进了更大的文化理解或各种其他积极目标。了解这些类型的网络是如何形成、运作、维持和发展的，对于一个运转良好的社会、一个不断增长的经济和有效的治理是非常重要的。

SES-1257138Paolo ParigiKaren CookStanford UniversityThis 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 ImpactThe 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.