Dynamics of Social Play

Digital games have become a social medium. Players are often socially motivated to play games and actively seek out games that offer social interactions. Early studies on games such as World of Warcraft demonstrate that players can form meaningful bonds within the game. Catering to this trend, most game titles now include multiplayer experiences in their gameplay. Despite the growing popularity of social elements within play, we still have little empirically-founded guidance on how to effectively design for social experiences. If we want to design for social play, we have to understand what makes games social. What are the properties of play that are responsible for facilitating social ties between players? We address this question by synthesizing the exiting literature on design recommendations for social play into identify overarching properties of play that we think are the most prolific in literature: cooperation and interdependence. We perform two experimental studies demonstrating how games facilitate trust between players and how cooperation and interdependence are crucial properties of social play. Furthermore, we validate our framework in a field study, investigating the experiences within games that predict in-game social capital. We demonstrate that interdependence and toxicity are strongly linked to the social capital our participants experience in their gaming communities. We also illustrate how in-game social capital is negatively associated with feelings of loneliness and positively associated with need satisfaction of relatedness outside of the context of play. Overall, our findings emphasize how strongly the experiences within the game affect the social ties that emerge from play, suggesting that informed design choices are crucial for the success of social games. This dissertation also contributes to the ongoing debate about the effects that in-game relationships have on the player’s mental health—we show a strong positive link between in-game social capital and markers for psychological well-being. It is easy to disregard in-game relationships, as they are fundamentally distinct from the in-person ones we think of as natural. Yet we cannot ignore the emergence of digital games as a social medium. The more we understand the underlying elements of social play, the better we can design games that bring people closer together

The role of social capital in homogeneous society: Review of recent researches in Japan

It is widely and increasingly acknowledged that social capital plays a crucial role in the economic performance, which covers various facets of　human behavior. A growing body of literature has sought to investigate the role of social capital mainly in heterogeneous societies such as USA, whereas works concerning homogeneous society have not yet sufficiently been　provided. From the comparative point of view, researches on homogeneous society are called for. In this paper, therefore, I aim to introduce researches to explore how social capital affects the socio-economic outcomes of Japan, which is considered as a relatively homogeneous society. Recent preliminary empirical works attempted to provide the interesting evidence in Japan, which covers the following topics.　 (1) Criminal prevention, manner of driving, suicide, lawyers demand for conflict resolution (2) cinema and baseball attendance, (3) voter turnout, response to Census, and protection against natural disasters, (4) diffusion of knowledge, efficiency improvement and industrial development, (5) quality of life in terms of health, (6) formation of trust in a community. It follows from them that the social capital enhances the collective action, leading to benefit, however such effect has changed over time.social capital, Japan

Unravelling the Influence of Online Social Context on Consumer Health Information Technology (CHIT) Implementations

While health information technology research has examined a variety of topics (e.g., adoption and assimilation of technology within healthcare organizations, critical success factors), it has remained unclear how the uniqueness of the online context (e.g., users connecting with strangers for social and emotional support) influences consumer health information technology (CHIT) implementations. Towards this goal, this dissertation examines the influence of online social context on CHIT implementations and outcomes. Using theories from social psychology, this dissertation encompasses two empirical research essays. The first essay draws on the environmental enrichment concept to examine the influential role of the online social context of a gamified CHIT on its success. By surveying existing fitness technology users, we demonstrate the influence of the social context enabled by CHITs on behavioral adherence to exercise. The second essay draws on construal level theory to examine the influence of textual information (such as race, geographic location) in online patient communities on a user’s trust of the community and the system as well as their intentions to participate in them. Using randomized experiments, we identify some of the propinquity-related factors that influence a user’s trust in online patient communities. The key contribution of this dissertation is the advancement of our understanding of the important role played by the social context enabled by the CHITs

In crowdfunding we trust : a trust-building model in lending crowdfunding

Trust critically affects the perceived probability of receiving expected returns on investment. Crowdfunding differs in many ways from traditional forms of investing. We have to ask what builds trust in this particular context. Based on literature regarding the formation of initial trust, we developed a model to explain which factors lead to crowdfunders’ trust in a crowdfunding project. We tested it on data collected from actual investors in a real project on a crowdlending platform. Our results show that trust in the crowdfunding platform and the information quality are more important factors of project trust than trust in the creator

Can you trust someone you have never met? Swift trust and self-disclosure in temporary teams

In this thesis I ask the question “can you trust someone you have never met”. The background for this is the temporary nature of cabin crew teams which implies that it is not possible to rely on conventional trust, and to better understand how it still is possible to trust someone you have never met I have focused on factors that contribute to initial trust (or categorization) and swift trust. An important aspect is communication between team members, and especially self-disclosure. My main hypothesis is that self-disclosure serves as an accelerator in building trust swiftly, and by taking a closer look at self-disclosure and swift trust in temporary teams I have aimed to increase the understanding of the mechanisms behind the substantial degree of openness that seem to exist within cabin crew and its effect on trust development. All my informants have highlighted the swiftness of self-disclosure, i.e., that self-disclosure takes place very early in the relationship. Furthermore, I have identified reciprocation of such self-disclosure as crucial in building trust among cabin crew members, and that self-disclosure seem to accelerate swift trust

Using laboratory experiments to study otherwise unobservable labor market interactions

In this dissertation, we use laboratory experiments to study otherwise unobservable interactions in the labor market. The key advantage of laboratory experiments is the ability to control conditions more tightly than in any other context, so it plays a distinctive role in serving as the first link in a longer chain running from standard theory to actual outcome in the real world. Our experiments can even provide valuable information on how people behave in situations where existing theory provides little or no guide to what should happen. In our first experiment, we study the impact of specific incentive schemes on people\u27s behavior by systematically varying them. We create an experimental labor market where workers can join companies that pay them according to different compensation schemes: (a) piece rate, (b) revenue sharing, (c) individual tournament, and (d) team tournament. In order to disentangle incentive and self-sorting effects, our experiment forces all workers to initially complete real-effort tasks paid by four given incentives respectively, and then use compensating differentials to elicit their preferences for different incentives. Therefore, based on the lab data from our sample of Chinese university students, we are able to study their productivity response to various incentives as well as their preferences for different types of compensation. When we analyze individual productivity under four incentives, we find that: (1) Compared to the baseline performance paid by piece rate, under three team-based incentives, more competitive incentive generates higher performance improvement. (2) Feedback about relative performance reduces the performance differences between three team-based incentives. (3) Regardless of incentives and feedback information, an additional compensation in terms of sign-up bonus brings a positive and significant effect on individual performance. In addition, by eliciting subjects\u27 preferences for different compensation schemes, we build a mapping from individual characteristics to their self-sorting outcome as follows: (1) Subjects with high relative performance always prefer individual tournament to other two team-based incentives. (2) Risk-averse subjects are less likely to choose individual tournament if knowing the information about their relative performance. (3) Cooperative incentives attract more women than men, which is partially explained by gender-specific social preferences. (4) Compared to children with siblings, only children are less cooperative but more competitive. (5) In the absence of feedback, overconfident subjects are more likely to enter into individual tournament than those under-confident subjects with the same ability. Interestingly, the provision of information about their relative performance eliminates the impact of biased self-assessment. As a result, the feedback helps reduce the gender gap in competition as well as the difference between only child and child with siblings. In a different study, we design a new laboratory experiment to investigate the ways that trust between strangers evolves in a setting where noisy feedback regarding mutual trustworthiness is present. We use a two-player sequential trust game where each trustor receives a sequence of noisy binary signals that reveal the trustworthiness type of the trustee. As a result, we track the evolution of trustors\u27 individual beliefs about trustworthiness types of trustees to document that subjects process information in an asymmetric way compared to a perfect Bayesian: they react more to negative feedback rather than positive. We show that our empirical results arise naturally in a theoretical model where there exists a complementary relationship between initial trust and optimally biased Bayesian information processing. Hence, we theoretically predict that greater initial trust must be counter-balanced by more asymmetric belief updating. We then use a novel method to demonstrate this hypothesis in the following-up experiment. We match participants from two different universities (in Hong Kong and Beijing, respectively) and prime them on the social identity of their counterparts. Consequently, by the introduction of social identity, we find that both initial trust level and asymmetry of belief updating are stronger for in-group matches than out-group matches, which is consistent with our theoretical prediction

Building trust in cross-cultural relationships: Active trust through culture mobilisation in Finnish-Indian project teams

This thesis examines trust building in Finnish-Indian distributed teams engaged in knowledge-intensive project work. To understand how actors build trust in the context of cultural distance and virtual collaboration, dynamic approaches to trust building and culture were adopted. The data were collected through interviews and observations in both geographical locations. In distributed project teams, static and slowly evolving trust creation models are not sufficient in explaining the ways trust is built to meet the needs of temporal project teams working distantly in a cross-cultural environment. Thus, this study suggests active trust as a solution in this challenging context of trust creation and places the main emphasis on the role of an active trustor. In doing so, this research challenges the static and passive trust models where trust development is focused on the trustee and their trustworthiness. Moreover, the study challenges the static culture approaches and adopts a dynamic mosaic perspective to culture as a collection of various cultural identities and elements that are used as resources. This allows for the examination of the agentic view of culture mobilisation. The findings illustrate how trusting parties are capable of mobilising various cultural elements and engage in purposeful trust-building practices to lessen the vulnerability caused by the unfamiliarity due to cultural differences and virtual communication. The agency in constructing actions to build trust is a central feature of collaborators who are successful in active trust building. Furthermore, researching the mobilisation of cultural elements in trust building revealed that the collaborators were not only drawing on existing cultural similarities but also engaged in a process of adjusting and adopting new cultural elements. The co-created third culture acted as the strongest nominator for active trust development in Finnish-Indian project teams. This thesis contributes to business practitioners working in the context of global teams where practices of active trust are needed to allow collaboration on complex and novel tasks that require efficient knowledge transfer. The findings guide team members to actively invest in the co-creation of shared culture elements and proactively shape the conditions for trusting

Trust in management: The effect of managerial trustworthy behavior and reciprocity

In this paper we study the antecedents of subordinates’ trust in their leaders (STL). In particular, we focus on the effects of managerial trustworthy behavior (MTB) and subordinates’ perceptions of leaders’ trust in them (LTS). We develop a scale of managerial trustworthy behavior following the typology proposed by Whitener, Brodt, Korsgaard and Werner (1998) that includes: behavioral consistency, behavioral integrity, sharing and delegation of control, communication, and demonstration of concern. A sample of 109 Spanish middle managers provided data for our study. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis show that both MTB and LTS have a significant relationship with STL. Further, we study the effect of reciprocity in the trusting relationship. We find that there are significant differences between subordinates’ trust in management and their perceptions about superiors’ trust in them.trust; leadership; reciprocity; social exchange;