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Dynamics of Trust
Trust in its intrinsic nature is a dynamic phenomenon. Trust has to change on time, because all
the entities participating in the trust relationship are potentially modifiable. In real interactions,
we never have exactly the same interactive situation in different time instants.
Trust changes with experience, with the modification of the different sources it is based on,
with the emotional or rational state of the trustor, with the modification of the environment in
which the trustee is supposed to perform, and so on. In other words, being trusted is an attitude
depending on dynamic phenomena, as a consequence it is itself a dynamic entity.
In fact, trust is in part a socially emergent phenomenon; it is a mental state, but in socially
situated agents and based on social context. In particular, trust is a very dynamic phenomenon;
not only because it is based on the trustor 's previous experiences, but because it is not simply
an external observer's prediction or expectation about a matter of fact.
There are many studies in literature dealing with the dynamics of trust ((Jonker and Treur,
1999), (Barber and Kim, 2000), (Birk, 2000), (Falcone and Castelfranchi, 2001)). We are
interested in analyzing four main basic aspects of this phenomenon:
i) The traditional problem of how trust changes on the basis of the trustor's experiences
(both positive and negative ones).
ii) The fact that in the same situation trust is influenced by trust in several rather complex
ways.
iii) How diffuse trust diffuses trust ( trust atmosphere ), that is how X 's trusting Y can influence
Z trusting Y or W , and so on.
iv) The fact that it is possible to predict how/when an agent who trusts something/someone
will therefore trust something/someone else, before and without a direct experience ( trust
through generalization reasoning ).
The first case (i) considers the well known phenomenon about the fact that trust evolves in
time and has a history, that is X 's trust in Y depends on X 's previous experience and learning
with Y himself or with other (similar) entities. In the following sections, we will analyze this
case showing that it is true that in general a successful performance of Y increases X 's trust
in him (and vice versa a failing performance drastically decreases X 's trust) but we will also
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