IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0105559.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Personal Trust Increases Cooperation beyond General Trust

Author

Listed:
  • 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.

Suggested Citation

  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0105559
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0105559&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0105559?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    2. Fehrler, Sebastian & Przepiorka, Wojtek, 2013. "Charitable Giving as a Signal of Trustworthiness: Disentangling the Signaling Benefits of Altruistic Acts," IZA Discussion Papers 7148, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Inglehart, Ronald, 1988. "The Renaissance of Political Culture," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(4), pages 1203-1230, December.
    4. Herbert Gintis, 2000. "Strong Reciprocity and Human Sociality," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2000-02, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    5. Matjaž Perc & Zhen Wang, 2010. "Heterogeneous Aspirations Promote Cooperation in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(12), pages 1-8, December.
    6. Mary L. Rigdon & Kevin A. McCabe & Vernon L. Smith, 2007. "Sustaining Cooperation in Trust Games," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 991-1007, July.
    7. Zhu, Cheng-jie & Sun, Shi-wen & Wang, Li & Ding, Shuai & Wang, Juan & Xia, Cheng-yi, 2014. "Promotion of cooperation due to diversity of players in the spatial public goods game with increasing neighborhood size," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 406(C), pages 145-154.
    8. Jelena Grujić & Constanza Fosco & Lourdes Araujo & José A Cuesta & Angel Sánchez, 2010. "Social Experiments in the Mesoscale: Humans Playing a Spatial Prisoner's Dilemma," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(11), pages 1-9, November.
    9. Zhen Wang & Lin Wang & Zi-Yu Yin & Cheng-Yi Xia, 2012. "Inferring Reputation Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation in Spatial Social Dilemma Games," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-9, July.
    10. Martin A. Nowak & Karl Sigmund, 1998. "Evolution of indirect reciprocity by image scoring," Nature, Nature, vol. 393(6685), pages 573-577, June.
    11. Binmore, Ken & Shaked, Avner, 2010. "Experimental economics: Where next?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 87-100, January.
    12. 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.
    13. Bouma, Jetske & Bulte, Erwin & van Soest, Daan, 2008. "Trust and cooperation: Social capital and community resource management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 155-166, September.
    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. 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.
    2. Gill, David & Rosokha, Yaroslav, 2020. "Beliefs, learning, and personality in the indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 489, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    3. 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.
    4. Stefan Leenheer & Maurice Gesthuizen & Michael Savelkoul, 2021. "Two-Way, One-Way or Dead-End Streets? Financial and Social Causes and Consequences of Generalized Trust," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 915-937, June.
    5. Hitesh Sapkota & Pradeep K Murukannaiah & Yi Wang, 2019. "A network-centric approach for estimating trust between open source software developers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(12), pages 1-30, December.
    6. 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).
    7. 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.
    8. 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).

    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. Elliot T Berkman & Evgeniya Lukinova & Ivan Menshikov & Mikhail Myagkov, 2015. "Sociality as a Natural Mechanism of Public Goods Provision," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, March.
    2. Ding, Shuai & Wang, Juan & Ruan, Sumei & Xia, Chengyi, 2015. "Inferring to individual diversity promotes the cooperation in the spatial prisoner’s dilemma game," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 91-99.
    3. Wang, Chengjiang & Wang, Li & Wang, Juan & Sun, Shiwen & Xia, Chengyi, 2017. "Inferring the reputation enhances the cooperation in the public goods game on interdependent lattices," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 293(C), pages 18-29.
    4. Hu, Menglong & Wang, Juan & Kong, Lingcong & An, Kang & Bi, Tao & Guo, Baohong & Dong, Enzeng, 2015. "Incorporating the information from direct and indirect neighbors into fitness evaluation enhances the cooperation in the social dilemmas," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 47-52.
    5. Tünde Paál & Tamás Bereczkei, 2015. "Punishment as a Means of Competition: Implications for Strong Reciprocity Theory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-14, March.
    6. Genki Ichinose & Masaya Saito & Shinsuke Suzuki, 2013. "Collective Chasing Behavior between Cooperators and Defectors in the Spatial Prisoner’s Dilemma," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(7), pages 1-10, July.
    7. Brosnan, Sarah F., 2011. "An evolutionary perspective on morality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 23-30, January.
    8. Bogliacino, Francesco & Codagnone, Cristiano, 2021. "Microfoundations, behaviour, and evolution: Evidence from experiments," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 372-385.
    9. Tian, Lin-Lin & Li, Ming-Chu & Lu, Kun & Zhao, Xiao-Wei & Wang, Zhen, 2013. "The influence of age-driven investment on cooperation in spatial public goods games," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 65-70.
    10. Quan, Ji & Tang, Caixia & Wang, Xianjia, 2021. "Reputation-based discount effect in imitation on the evolution of cooperation in spatial public goods games," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 563(C).
    11. Zhou, Tianwei & Ding, Shuai & Fan, Wenjuan & Wang, Hao, 2016. "An improved public goods game model with reputation effect on the spatial lattices," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 130-135.
    12. Daniel Friedman & Nirvikar Singh, 2004. "Vengefulness Evolves in Small Groups," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Steffen Huck (ed.), Advances in Understanding Strategic Behaviour, chapter 3, pages 28-54, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. Chen, Mei-huan & Wang, Li & Wang, Juan & Sun, Shi-wen & Xia, Cheng-yi, 2015. "Impact of individual response strategy on the spatial public goods game within mobile agents," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 251(C), pages 192-202.
    14. Ding, Chenxi & Wang, Juan & Zhang, Ying, 2016. "Impact of self interaction on the evolution of cooperation in social spatial dilemmas," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 393-399.
    15. Jelle De Boer, 2017. "Social Preferences and Context Sensitivity," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-15, October.
    16. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2004. "Social norms and human cooperation," Macroeconomics 0409026, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Zheng, Lei & Li, Youqi & Zhou, Jingsai & Li, Yumeng, 2022. "The effect of celebrity on the evolution of fairness in the ultimatum game," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 585(C).
    18. Wang, Zhen & Wu, Bin & Li, Ya-peng & Gao, Hang-xian & Li, Ming-chu, 2013. "Does coveting the performance of neighbors of thy neighbor enhance spatial reciprocity?," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 28-34.
    19. Sethi, Rajiv & Somanathan, E., 2003. "Understanding reciprocity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 1-27, January.
    20. Herne, Kaisa & Lappalainen, Olli & Kestilä-Kekkonen, Elina, 2013. "Experimental comparison of direct, general, and indirect reciprocity," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 38-46.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0105559. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.