Dynamics of Trust - Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model - page 164

Given this is X 's belief, the question is: what about the DoT XY τ ?
Is there a sort of trust transitivity ? If so, what is its actual nature? (A frequent simplification
about the trust transitivity is to consider it as a trivial question: if A trusts B and B trusts C ,
then A trusts C ; in fact the problem is more complex and relates to the identification of the
real object to transfer from an agent to another one).
Let us consider the case in which the only knowledge that X has about Y and about Y 's
possible performance on τ is given by Z . We hypothesize that:

DoT XY τ = Inf X ( ZYe v ( τ )) ∗ DoT XZe v ( t )

where:
DoT XZe v ( τ ) is the X 's degree of trust in Z about a new task ev( τ ) that is the task of evaluating

competences, opportunities, etc. about τ (see Figure 6.11). And Inf X (Z Y ev( τ )) represents

Trust on

Y

Trust on ev( )

Z

Z

X X

Trust on

Y

X

Figure 6.11 Pseudo-Transitivity: trusting through the others' trust