The mechanics of trust: a framework for research and design

With an increasing number of technologies supporting transactions over distance and replacing traditional forms of interaction, designing for trust in mediated interactions has become a key concern for researchers in human computer interaction (HCI). While much of this research focuses on increasing users’ trust, we present a framework that shifts the perspective towards factors that support trustworthy behavior. In a second step, we analyze how the presence of these factors can be signalled. We argue that it is essential to take a systemic perspective for enabling well-placed trust and trustworthy behavior in the long term. For our analysis we draw on relevant research from sociology, economics, and psychology, as well as HCI. We identify contextual properties (motivation based on temporal, social, and institutional embeddedness) and the actor's intrinsic properties (ability, and motivation based on internalized norms and benevolence) that form the basis of trustworthy behavior. Our analysis provides a frame of reference for the design of studies on trust in technology-mediated interactions, as well as a guide for identifying trust requirements in design processes. We demonstrate the application of the framework in three scenarios: call centre interactions, B2C e-commerce, and voice-enabled on-line gaming

Security models for trusting network appliances

A significant characteristic of pervasive computing is the need for secure interactions between highly mobile entities and the services in their environment. Moreover,these decentralised systems are also characterised by partial views over the state of the global environment, implying that we cannot guarantee verification of the properties of the mobile entity entering an unfamiliar domain. Secure in this context encompasses both the need for cryptographic security and the need for trust, on the part of both parties, that the interaction is functioning as expected. In this paper we make a broad assumption that trust and cryptographic security can be considered as orthogonal concerns (i.e. cryptographic measures do not ensure transmission of correct information). We assume the existence of reliable encryption techniques and focus on the characteristics of a model that supports the management of the trust relationships between two devices during ad-hoc interactions

Influence of generalized trust on Canadian consumers’ reactions to the perceived food risk of three recurring BSE cases

Interest in the influence of trust on consumers’ responses to food risk perceptions associated with Canadian instances of BSE motivates this study, in which Canadian households’ expenditures on fresh meat are assessed in the context of the first three recurring risk events in which bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was found to have affected Canadian cows. Engel Curve analysis focusing on the dynamics of the monthly meat expenditure shares for a selected sample of 437 Canadian households for 2002 through 2005 is applied based on data on household expenditures for meat purchased by a national sample of Canadian households from the Nielsen Homescan® Canadian panel, supplemented by survey responses on BSE risk perceptions and measures of trust. Two sets of models are estimated: Engel curves in differences with instruments in levels and Engel curves in levels with instruments in differences. It is found that habit persistence limited households’ reductions of beef purchases following the first BSE event and that that trust limited households’ reduction in beef expenditure shares following the subsequent two BSE cases. Significant seasonal effects and a significant negative influence on beef expenditure shares are also found, consistent with the trend of declining consumption of beef in Canada since the late 1990s.BSE, Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), trust, Consumer/Household Economics, D12, C29,

The SECURE collaboration model

The SECURE project has shown how trust can be made computationally tractable while retaining a reasonable connection with human and social notions of trust. SECURE has produced a well-founded theory of trust that has been tested and refined through use in real software such as collaborative spam filtering and electronic purse. The software comprises the SECURE kernel with extensions for policy specification by application developers. It has yet to be applied to large-scale, multi-domain distributed systems taking different application contexts into account. The project has not considered privacy in evidence distribution, a crucial issue for many application domains, including public services such as healthcare and police. The SECURE collaboration model has similarities with the trust domain concept, embodying the interaction set of a principal, but SECURE is primarily concerned with pseudonymous entities rather than domain-structured systems

A Formal Model for Trust in Dynamic Networks

We propose a formal model of trust informed by the Global Computing scenario and focusing on the aspects of trust formation, evolution, and propagation. The model is based on a novel notion of trust structures which, building on concepts from trust management and domain theory, feature at the same time a trust and an information partial order

Serving High-Risk Youth in Context: Perspectives from Hong Kong

Background: High-risk youth are often defined in occupational therapy terminology as adolescents and young adults who experience personal, contextual, or environmental barriers to effective participation in healthy, age-appropriate occupations. Without assistance for participation, these youth may acquiesce to daily routines of unhealthy risk-taking or isolation, failing to achieve developmental milestones needed for successful transition to adulthood. There are known therapeutic services targeting this population, but occupational therapy involvements have been sparsely documented. Method: Having been affiliated with a community-based occupational therapy program serving high-risk youth for many years in the US, the principal investigator of the study used a sabbatical opportunity to explore services provided to high-risk youth in Hong Kong (HK). This paper reports preliminary findings obtained from an exploratory study of analyzing transcripts of 13 one-on-one interviews with service providers in HK. Results: Two major themes are discussed in this paper: the prevalent behavioral risks among high-risk youth as perceived by the service providers and the intervention approaches used by the service providers with the high-risk youth population in HK. Conclusion: Reflecting on the preliminary outcome of the study, the authors suggest that occupational therapy may contribute to mitigating youths’ risk factors through ecological occupational engagement

Does one trust judgement fit all? Linking theory and empirics

Copyright @ 2010 The Authors. This is the accepted version of the following article: Fisher, J., Van Heerde, J. and Tucker, A. (2010), Does One Trust Judgement Fit All? Linking Theory and Empirics. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 12: 161–188, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2009.00401.x/abstract.Few questions in political science have received more attention in recent times than the role of trust in democracy, democratic government and political participation. In Britain this has become a particular concern as levels of democratic engagement in traditional politics have declined, exacerbated by media reports of politicians' untrustworthy behaviour. A common feature of previous empirical work on political trust is that trust is treated as a single theoretical concept. Scholars have assumed that trust operates in a similar fashion across different political institutions—that citizens' trust mechanisms are the same for trusting parliament, the prime minister or the European Union. As a consequence, the operationalisation of trust has generally been through a single measure. In this article we draw on recent research from political theory, where different forms of judgements whether to trust—strategic, moral and deliberative—have been conceptualised, to argue that trust judgements may vary in application and significance depending upon the institution under examination. Using specially designed data sets generated from YouGov's weekly omnibus and the British Election Study's Continuous Monitoring Panel, we operationalise these three forms of trust judgements to examine trust in two British institutions—political parties and politicians. We find, as hypothesised, that different forms of trust judgements are of differing significance depending upon the institution under consideration

Ecology and trust in mangement and business research 1995-2010. Tentative findings. MULTI-TRUST research paper

Trust’ is considered an important driving factor for the development of ‘green growth’ strategies. An understanding of how ‘trust’ is created and maintained is crucial for those strategies. However, b& m research does neither offer consistent nor conclusive definitions of ‘trust’. Based on the review, a tentative suggestion is that the development of promising practices for the creation and maintenance of ‘trust’ is to be related to the organic complexities located in Denmark that characterize the transformation of the social space of organic agribusiness. Organic complexities are amongst others characterized by the highly fragmented meaning and current restructuring of the content of ‘organic’, diverse sale challenges, interdependences in the accreditation and certification processes, and the limited information value of eco labels. In order to meet related trust challenges, the concept of ‘high-trust relationships’ seems to be useful for this pursuit