Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines how different forms of linguistic accommodation relate to the establishment of trust in a text-chat environment. Sixty-two pairs participated in an iterative social dilemma investment game and periodically communicated via Instant Messenger (IM). Novel automated and manual analysis techniques identify linguistic accommodation at verbatim and semantic levels. Our results contribute to the trust and computer-mediated communication literatures: “Good” accommodation (linguistic mimicry, similarity in use of positive and task-related words) is associated with high levels of interpersonal trust while “bad” accommodation (e.g. similarity in use of negative words) is associated with low levels of interpersonal trust.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Trust is an indispensable part of all meaningful relationships and a necessary component of all human organizations. The indications that trust is breaking down, as noted by a number of researchers, is a matter of grave concern. An environment in which others’ words are constantly questioned and judged diminishes the role of agency and has an impact on interpersonal relationships. Research presented here compares high-trust and low-trust organizational contexts with an aim to elucidate the role of trust in developing and maintaining interpersonal relationships in organizations. In the introductory section of the paper, I address the role of trust in human relationships and organizations in general. In the following section, I explain the purpose of the study and the method applied. In the third section, I present the findings from the study, with a specific focus on implications of low-trust organizational contexts. In the final section, I provide a discussion of the findings.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This research examined how valence of information affects relational outcomes in initial interaction. The relational outcomes of interest here are uncertainty reduction and the states of both cognitive trust and behavioral trust. Uncertainty level and the cognitive state of trust should act as the preconditions for behavioral trust, as behavioral trust involves actual risk in a vulnerable situation rather than simply a perception of the other individual. In order to examine the causal relationship between information valence and multi-dimensional aspects of trust, an experiment was conducted. Participants were randomly given either positively or negatively valenced information about a confederate and were asked to fill out questionnaires assessing their uncertainty level and cognitive state of trust toward the confederate. The Prisoner’s Dilemma game was used to operationalize the construct of behavioral trust. The results indicated that valence of information had a significant effect on the cognitive level of trust, especially, perceived trustworthiness. However, information valence did not have a significant effect on predicting behavioral trust, except for the positively valenced information condition. The path model indicated that both uncertainty reduction level and perceived trustworthiness were significant predictors for behavioral trust when the individual was exposed to a piece of positive information about the partner.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: Trust in media and trust in politics are two highly intertwined mechanisms that are of utmost significance to modern societies. Mass communication scholars agree that political actors are always interested in the transmission of their trustworthiness and credibility. However, since this transmission is a mass-mediated phenomenon, trust in politics can not evolve when there is no trust in news media. This idea is tested with survey data on the Swiss debate about asylum policy in 2006. Path analysis shows that both newspaper and television trust increase political trust which in turn increases political participation. However, only newspaper trust explains learning from the news. The results are discussed in terms of their importance for trust and credibility theory in mass communication research.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: It is empirically verified that people with higher income are on average more trustful than those with lower income. If this finding is unconditionally valid, a dismal society may emerge in which the rich become richer by trusting strangers and receiving higher payoffs. The purpose of this paper is to explore what conditions facilitate or hinder the growth of the dismal society by building an agent-based model. The hypothesis to be examined is that the attractiveness of the market facilitates trusting behavior of the rich, which results in a wider gap of the accumulated payoffs between the rich and the poor. In the model agents decide whether to leave their assurance group in order to receive a higher payoff from a stranger in the market. If an agent’s partner is trustworthy, the agent receives a higher payoff from the partner than from a member in his/her assurance group. If the partner is not trustworthy, however, the agent receives a lower payoff. After receiving payoffs, agents learn to change their behavior. A result of the simulation shows that the gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider only when the attractiveness of the market is modest.