Foraging for trust : Exploring rationality and the stag hunt game

Abstract. Trust presents a number of problems and paradoxes, because existing theory is not fully adequate for understanding why there is so much of it, why it occurs, and so forth. These problems and paradoxes of trust are vitally important, for trust is thought to be the essential glue that holds societies together. This paper explores the generation of trust with two simple, but very different models, focusing on repeated play of the Stag Hunt game. A gridscape model examines creation of trust among cognitively basic simple agents. A Markov model examimes play between two somewhat more sophisticated agents. In both models, trust emerges robustly. Lessons are extracted from these findings which point to a new way of conceiving rationality, a way that is broadly applicable and can inform future investigations of trust.