Affect and Trust

Affect and Trust was written out of the College of Information Science and Technology in Drexel University, PA, by Lewis Hassel.  It can be found for free online here.

Life

It has been an exciting week, with a work party, Halloween party, Halloween outing (and old movie night) at the Enzian, and tonight's actual Halloween.  I think that with a party, movie, trick-or-treating, and Halloween Horror Nights, we may have bled this year dry.  Career-wise, RDECOM (now a subcomponent of ARL) has opened a position for me, and I have applied.  I can't wait to get my hands dirty with a research organization.  Of course, I am still reading Building Intelligent Interactive Tutors.

Issue

Hassel argues that there is a very distinct difference between trust and belief.  In his model, trust is based on action, while belief is based cognitively.  The example that shows this the most clearly is in the person falling backward.  He may believe that the other person is going to catch him, which is based logically on evidence that the other person is strong, not likely to want to inflict him harm, in close proximity, etc.  However, Hassel argues that he does not trust the person unless he actually falls.  While we may believe that we trust someone, we do not until the actual action is taken.

When do we trust someone?

Bos et al showed in 2002 that we tend to trust people more when meeting them face to face

     Effects of Four Computer-Mediated Communications Channels on Trust Development

Zheng has showed that we can trust people we've never met just as well, but that it takes long, and that just seeing a picture of the person is immensely helpful.  In fact, it is more helpful than seeing a datasheet of the person.

     Trust Without Touch: Jumpstarting Long-Distance Trust with Initial Social Activities

How do we model it?

note - PEU is Perceived Ease of Use
Each of the terms here is defined in the paper, as is each numbered path

Conclusion and Why do you care? 

It is important to know why you trust someone and why they trust you.  As we develop more advanced models of the phenomenon, we understand it better.  As we understand it better, we learn how we can trust others more, and how we can build our own trust with others.