Trust among Internet Traders
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Gary E. Bolton
Abstract
Standard economic theory does not capture trust among anonymous Internet traders. But when traders are allowed to have social preferences, uncertainty about a seller’s morals opens t he door for trust, reward, exploitation and reputation building. We report experiments suggesting that sellers’ intrinsic motivations to be trustworthy are not sufficient to sustain trade when not complemented by a feedback system. We demonstrate that it is the interaction of social preferences and cleverly designed reputation mechanisms that solves to a large extent the trust problem on Internet market platforms. However, economic theory and social preference models tend to underestimate the difficulties of promoting trust in anonymous online trading communities.
© 2004 by Lucius & Lucius, Stuttgart
Articles in the same Issue
- Community and Human Social Nature Contemporary Society
- Three Aspects of Interpersonal Trust
- The Social Psychology of Trust with Applications in the Internet
- Cooperation and Community an the Internet: Past Issues and Present Perspectives for Theoretical-Empirical Internet Research
- Developing Trust on the Internet
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- Esteem, ldentifiability and the Internet
- Reputation and Internet Auctions: eBay and Beyond
- Trust among Internet Traders
- The Evolution of Trust(worthiness) in the Net
- The Emergence of Trust Networks under Uncertainty – Implications for Internet Interactions
- Local Virtuality in a High-Tech Networked Organization
- How May Virtual Communication Shape Cooperation in a Work Team?
- Trust and Community in Open Source Software Production
- Crime, Law and the Internet
Articles in the same Issue
- Community and Human Social Nature Contemporary Society
- Three Aspects of Interpersonal Trust
- The Social Psychology of Trust with Applications in the Internet
- Cooperation and Community an the Internet: Past Issues and Present Perspectives for Theoretical-Empirical Internet Research
- Developing Trust on the Internet
- Trust, Reliance and the Internet
- Internet Capital
- Esteem, ldentifiability and the Internet
- Reputation and Internet Auctions: eBay and Beyond
- Trust among Internet Traders
- The Evolution of Trust(worthiness) in the Net
- The Emergence of Trust Networks under Uncertainty – Implications for Internet Interactions
- Local Virtuality in a High-Tech Networked Organization
- How May Virtual Communication Shape Cooperation in a Work Team?
- Trust and Community in Open Source Software Production
- Crime, Law and the Internet
