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Personal Trust Increases Cooperation beyond General Trust

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  • Cristina Acedo-Carmona
  • Antoni Gomila

Abstract

In this paper we present a new methodology which, while allowing for anonymous interaction, it also makes possible to compare decisions of cooperating or defecting when playing games within a group, according to whether or not players personally trust each other. The design thus goes beyond standard approaches to the role of trust in fostering cooperation, which is restricted to general trust. It also allows considering the role of the topology of the social network involved may play in the level of cooperation found. The results of this work support the idea that personal trust promotes cooperation beyond the level of general trust. We also found that this effect carries over to the whole group, making it more cohesive, but that higher levels of cohesion rely on a particular topology. As a conclusion, we hypothesize that personal trust is a psychological mechanism evolved to make human social life possible in the small groups our ancestors lived in, and that this mechanism persists and plays a role in sustaining cooperation and social cohesion.

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  • Cristina Acedo-Carmona & Antoni Gomila, 2014. "Personal Trust Increases Cooperation beyond General Trust," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-10, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0105559
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105559
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    Cited by:

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    2. Brown, Philip & Roper, Simon, 2017. "Innovation and networks in New Zealand farming," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 61(3), July.
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    4. David Gill & Yaroslav Rosokha, 2024. "Beliefs, Learning, and Personality in the Indefinitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 259-283, August.
    5. Rabbani, Mehnaz & Rahman, Semab & Tasneem, Dina, 2022. "Trust and citizen participation in community-based monitoring system: An experimental evidence from Bangladesh," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    6. Ángela Marcela Olarte Delgado (Editor) & Marcela Gutiérrez Quevedo (Editor), 2022. "Cátedra Unesco : derechos humanos y violencia : gobierno y gobernanza : experiencias de diálogos restaurativos en el contexto transicional colombiano," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 1374, August.
    7. Shi-Zhu Liang & Jia-Lu Xu & Echo Huang, 2024. "Comprehensive Analysis of the Effect of Social Influence and Brand Image on Purchase Intention," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(1), pages 21582440231, January.
    8. Cristina Acedo-Carmona & Enric Munar & Antoni Gomila, 2018. "Trust-based altruism facing new contexts: The Vyegwa-Gika pygmies from Burundi," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-13, October.
    9. Xie, Yunya & Bai, Yu & Zhang, Yankun & Peng, Zhengyin, 2024. "Trust-induced cooperation under the complex interaction of networks and emotions," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).

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