Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Our thesis is that
to be trusted
:
i)
Increases
the chance of being requested or accepted as a partner for exchange or coop-
eration.
ii)
Improves
the 'price', the contract that the trustee can obtain.
The reason for this new point of view derives directly from the fact that in human societies
as well as in multi-agent systems it is strategically important not only to know who is trusted
by whom and how much, but also to understand how being trusted can be used by several
potential trustors. It has already been shown in the previous chapters that using different
levels of trust represents an advantage when performing some tasks, such as allocating a task
or choosing between partners. Therefore, having 'trust' as a cognitive parameter in agents'
decision making can lead to better (more efficient, faster etc.) solutions than proceeding when
driven by other kinds of calculation such as probabilistic or statistical ones. This study has
already represented an innovation since trust has usually been studied as an effect rather than
a factor that causes the development of a social network and its maintenance or structural
changes.
In order to improve this approach and to understand dynamics of social networks better,
we now propose a study of what happens on the other side of the two-way trust relationship,
focusing on the trustee, in particular on a
cognitive trustee
. Our aim is an analytical study of
what to be trusted means. In our view:
To be trustworthy usually is an advantage for the trustee (agent
Y
); more precisely, received
trust is a capital that can be invested, even if it requires choices and costs to be cumulated.
It is possible to measure this capital, which is relational, that is depends on a position in a
network of relationships.
Trust has different sources: from personal experience that the other agents have had with
Y
; from circulating reputation of
Y
; from
Y
's belongingness to certain groups or categories;
from the signs and the impressions that
Y
is able to produce.
The value of this capital is context dependent (and market dependent) and dynamic.
Received trust strongly affects the 'negotiation power' of
Y
that cannot simply be derived
from the 'dependence bilateral relationships'.
Although there is a big interest in literature about 'social capital' and its powerful effects on
the well being of both societies and individuals, often it is not clear enough what the object
is that's under analysis. Individual trust capital (
relational capital
) and collective trust capital
not only should be disentangled, but their relations are quite complicated and even conflicting.
To overcome this gap, we propose a study that first attempts to understand what trust is as the
competitive capital of individuals. How is it possible to say that 'trust' is a capital? How is this
capital built, managed and saved? Then we aim to study the cognitive dynamics of this object
analytically, with a particular focus on how they depend on beliefs and goals.
10.1 Trust and Relational Capital
Social capital ((Coleman, 1988), (Bourdieu, 1983), (Putnam, 1993), (Putnam, 2000),) can be
seen as a multidimensional concept and can be studied in its relation both to social norms
Search WWH ::
Custom Search