IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v10y2018i6p50-d151618.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fairness and Trust in Virtual Environments: The Effects of Reputation

Author

Listed:
  • Mirko Duradoni

    (Department of Information Engineering, University of Florence, Via Santa Marta 3, 50139 Firenze, Italy)

  • Mario Paolucci

    (Laboratory of Agent Based Social Simulation (LABSS), Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology (ISTC), National Research Council (CNR), Via Palestro 32, 00185 Rome, Italy)

  • Franco Bagnoli

    (Center for the Study of Complex Dynamics (CSDC), University of Florence, Via di San Salvi 12, 50135 Firenze, Italy)

  • Andrea Guazzini

    (Center for the Study of Complex Dynamics (CSDC), University of Florence, Via di San Salvi 12, 50135 Firenze, Italy
    Department of Education and Psychology, University of Florence, Via di San Salvi 12, 50135 Firenze, Italy)

Abstract

Reputation supports pro-social behaviors in a variety of social settings and across different ages. When re-encounters are possible, developing a positive reputation can be a valuable asset that will result in better outcomes. However, in real life, cooperative acts are ambiguous and happen in noisy environments in which individuals can have multiple goals, visibility is reduced, and reputation systems may differ. This study examined how reputation within a virtual environment affects fairness in material allocations and trust in information exchange, in a three-actors interaction game in which each player had an incentive to deceive the others. We compared the results of two experimental conditions, one in which informers could be evaluated, and one without reputational opportunities. A reputational system appeared to enhance both trust and fairness even within a virtual environment under anonymous condition. We tested adolescents and adults finding that they were consistently more generous when visibility was increased, but they showed significantly different patterns in resources allocation and information exchange. Male and female participants, across ages, showed other interesting differences. These findings suggest that reputational effects increase fairness and trust even in a noisy, ambiguous and uncertain environment, but this effect is modulated by age and gender.

Suggested Citation

  • Mirko Duradoni & Mario Paolucci & Franco Bagnoli & Andrea Guazzini, 2018. "Fairness and Trust in Virtual Environments: The Effects of Reputation," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-15, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:50-:d:151618
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/10/6/50/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/10/6/50/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:cup:judgdm:v:11:y:2016:i:6:p:589-600 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Chrysanthos Dellarocas, 2003. "The Digitization of Word of Mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(10), pages 1407-1424, October.
    3. Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Capraro, Valerio & Rascón-Ramírez, Ericka, 2018. "Gender differences in altruism on Mechanical Turk: Expectations and actual behaviour," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 19-23.
    4. Fehr, Ernst & Schmidt, Klaus M., 2010. "On inequity aversion: A reply to Binmore and Shaked," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 101-108, January.
    5. Daniel Jones & Sera Linardi, 2014. "Wallflowers: Experimental Evidence of an Aversion to Standing Out," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(7), pages 1757-1771, July.
    6. Christopher T. Dawes & James H. Fowler & Tim Johnson & Richard McElreath & Oleg Smirnov, 2007. "Egalitarian motives in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 446(7137), pages 794-796, April.
    7. Manfred Milinski & Dirk Semmann & Hans-Jürgen Krambeck, 2002. "Reputation helps solve the ‘tragedy of the commons’," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6870), pages 424-426, January.
    8. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6685), pages 573-577, June.
    9. M.A. Nowak & K. Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity by Image Scoring/ The Dynamics of Indirect Reciprocity," Working Papers ir98040, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
    10. Dellarocas, Chrysanthos, 2003. "The Digitization of Word-of-mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Working papers 4296-03, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    11. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 2005. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity," Nature, Nature, vol. 437(7063), pages 1291-1298, October.
    12. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Stefania Collodi & Sara Panerati & Enrico Imbimbo & Federica Stefanelli & Mirko Duradoni & Andrea Guazzini, 2018. "Personality and Reputation: A Complex Relationship in Virtual Environments," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Meng-Hsiang Hsu & Chun-Ming Chang & Shing-Ling Wu, 2020. "RE-examining the Effect of Online Social Support on Subjective Well-Being: The Moderating Role of Experience," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-15, May.
    3. Stefania Collodi & Maria Fiorenza & Andrea Guazzini & Mirko Duradoni, 2020. "How Reputation Systems Change the Psychological Antecedents of Fairness in Virtual Environments," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-17, August.
    4. José Manuel Ortiz-Marcos & María Tomé-Fernández & Christian Fernández-Leyva, 2021. "Cyberbullying Analysis in Intercultural Educational Environments Using Binary Logistic Regressions," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Mirko Duradoni & Stefania Collodi & Serena Coppolino Perfumi & Andrea Guazzini, 2021. "Reviewing Stranger on the Internet: The Role of Identifiability through “Reputation” in Online Decision Making," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-12, April.
    6. Annamaria Di Fabio & Letizia Palazzeschi & Mirko Duradoni, 2019. "Intrapreneurial Self-Capital Mediates the Connectedness to Nature Effect on Well-Being at Work," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-11, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew W. Bausch, 2014. "Evolving intergroup cooperation," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 369-393, December.
    2. Naoki Masuda & Mitsuhiro Nakamura, 2012. "Coevolution of Trustful Buyers and Cooperative Sellers in the Trust Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-11, September.
    3. Gong, Binglin & Yang, Chun-Lei, 2019. "Cooperation through indirect reciprocity: The impact of higher-order history," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 316-341.
    4. Laura Schmid & Farbod Ekbatani & Christian Hilbe & Krishnendu Chatterjee, 2023. "Quantitative assessment can stabilize indirect reciprocity under imperfect information," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    5. Tatsuya Sasaki & Satoshi Uchida & Isamu Okada & Hitoshi Yamamoto, 2024. "The Evolution of Cooperation and Diversity under Integrated Indirect Reciprocity," Games, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-16, April.
    6. Giangiacomo Bravo & Lucia Tamburino, 2008. "The Evolution of Trust in Non-Simultaneous Exchange Situations," Rationality and Society, , vol. 20(1), pages 85-113, February.
    7. Rense Corten & Judith Kas & Timm Teubner & Martijn Arets, 2023. "The role of contextual and contentual signals for online trust: Evidence from a crowd work experiment," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 33(1), pages 1-17, December.
    8. Ding, Rui & Wang, Xianjia & Liu, Yang & Zhao, Jinhua & Gu, Cuiling, 2023. "Evolutionary games with environmental feedbacks under an external incentive mechanism," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    9. Menusch Khadjavi, 2017. "Indirect Reciprocity and Charitable Giving— Evidence from a Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(11), pages 3708-3717, November.
    10. Robert Gazzale & Tapan Khopkar, 2011. "Remain silent and ye shall suffer: seller exploitation of reticent buyers in an experimental reputation system," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(2), pages 273-285, May.
    11. Charness, Gary & Du, Ninghua & Yang, Chun-Lei, 2011. "Trust and trustworthiness reputations in an investment game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 361-375, June.
    12. Kenju Kamei & Louis Putterman, 2018. "Reputation Transmission Without Benefit To The Reporter: A Behavioral Underpinning Of Markets In Experimental Focus," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 158-172, January.
    13. Suzuki, Shinsuke & Akiyama, Eizo, 2008. "Evolutionary stability of first-order-information indirect reciprocity in sizable groups," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 426-436.
    14. Britta Hoyer & Dirk van Straaten, 2021. "Anonymity and Self-Expression in Online Rating Systems - An Experimental Analysis," Working Papers Dissertations 70, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    15. Liang, Pinghan & Meng, Juanjuan, 2016. "Favor transmission and social image concern: An experimental study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 14-21.
    16. Lv, Shaojie & Wang, Xianjia, 2020. "The impact of heterogeneous investments on the evolution of cooperation in public goods game with exclusion," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 372(C).
    17. Wayne E. Baker & Nathaniel Bulkley, 2014. "Paying It Forward vs. Rewarding Reputation: Mechanisms of Generalized Reciprocity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 1493-1510, October.
    18. Jason Delaney & Sarah Jacobson, 2016. "Payments or Persuasion: Common Pool Resource Management with Price and Non-price Measures," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(4), pages 747-772, December.
    19. Gao, Yan & Li, Minlan & Hu, Yuanyuan & Wang, Rui-Wu & Wang, Chao, 2024. "Evolutionary dynamics in voluntary prisoner’s dilemma game with environmental feedbacks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    20. Brent Simpson & Bradley Montgomery & David Melamed, 2023. "Reputations for treatment of outgroup members can prevent the emergence of political segregation in cooperative networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:50-:d:151618. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.