Diego Gambetta: Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate

communication, signalling, reputation, uncertainty, convention, deception, trust

The Evolution of Trust and Reputation: Results from Simulation Experiments

In online interactions in general, but especially in interactions between buyers and sellers on internet-auction platforms, the interacting parties must deal with trust and cooperation problems. Whether a rating system is able to foster trust and cooperation through reputation and without an external enforcer is an open question. We therefore explore through ecological analysis different buyer and seller strategies in terms of their success and their contribution to supporting or impeding trust and cooperation. In our agent-based model, the interaction between a buyer and a seller is defined by a one-shot trust game with a reputation mechanism. In every interaction, a buyer has complete information about a seller's past behavior. We find that cooperation evolves under two conditions even in the absence of an external sanctioning authority. On the one hand, some minimal fraction of buyers must make use of the sellers’ reputation in their buying strategies and, on the other hand, trustworthy sellers must be given opportunities to gain a good reputation through their cooperative behavior. Despite the apparent usefulness of the reputation mechanism, a small number of deceitful sellers are able to hold their ground.trust game, reputation, agent-based simulation

‘Big data’ from online interactions offer a rich object of study for academics and policy-makers interested in human nature and economic behaviour

Data on the interactions between individuals on the Internet are often viewed as a potential threat to privacy or freedom of expression, particularly in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s disclosures on the surveillance activities conducted by the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA). As Wojtek Przepiorka writes, however, the ‘big data’ produced by online transactions on websites such as eBay can also be an invaluable resource for academics and policy-makers. He argues that subjecting this data to formal study has the potential to uncover key insights on human nature and economic behaviour

Lifting the veil of ignorance: An experiment on the contagiousness of norm violations

Norm violations can be contagious. Previous research analyzed two mechanisms of why knowledge about others’ norm violations triggers its spread: (1) Actors lower their subjective beliefs about the probability or severity of punishment, or (2) they condition their compliance on others’ compliance. While earlier field studies could hardly disentangle both effects, we use a laboratory experiment which eliminated any punishment threat. Subjects (n = 466) could commit a violation of the honesty norm. They threw a die and were paid according to their reported number. Our design ruled out any possibility of personal identification so that subjects could lie about their thrown number and claim inflated payoffs without risking detection. The aggregate distribution of reported payoffs allowed determining the extent of liars in the population. Two treatments in which subjects were informed about lying behavior of others were compared to a control condition without information feedback. Distributions from a subsequent dice throw revealed that knowledge about liars triggered the spread of lying compared to the control condition. Our results demonstrate the contagiousness of norm violations, where actors imitate norm violations of others under the exclusion of strategic motives.Social norms, social influence, cheating, lying, experimental sociology, conditional cooperation, Heinrich Popitz

Temporal Embeddedness and Signals of Trustworthiness: Experimental Tests of a Game Theoretic Model in the United Kingdom, Russia, and Switzerland

Based on signalling theory, Posner (1998, 2000) suggests that seemingly irrational behaviour or social norms emerge because they help to distinguish agents who prefer to engage in repeated cooperative interactions (long-term types) from agents with immediate non-cooperative incentives (short-term types). In this article, we formalize Posner's theory in a signalling trust game, derive hypotheses from our model, and test them empirically in a series of laboratory experiments in the United Kingdom, Russia, and Switzerland. Our results are surprisingly robust across the three countries and in line with most of our hypotheses. However, contrary to our main hypothesis, the introduction of a signalling opportunity does not increase the overall level of trust in our experiments and even reduces it under certain conditions. We argue that this is due to a high proportion of short-term types honouring trust because of non-selfish motives. Our results show that if a priori levels of trust and trustworthiness are high, introducing a signalling opportunity that is meant to distinguish long-term and short-term types may have a counterproductive effec

Does Living in a Protected Area Reduce Resource Use and Promote Life Satisfaction? Survey Results from and Around Three Regional Nature Parks in Switzerland

Regional nature parks in Switzerland are, for the most part, protected areas that aim to promote sustainable development and residents’ well-being. In recent years, research on regional nature parks and comparable protected areas has focused on questions regarding local populations’ acceptance of such areas, their governance, and their economic effects. However, we know surprisingly little about the impact of protected areas on environmental resource use and life satisfaction, two essential ingredients of sustainable regional development. In this study, we survey people living in and around three regional nature parks in Switzerland on their resource use and life satisfaction (gross sample n = 3358). We propose a novel measurement of resource use based on vignettes describing different lifestyles, which we validate against the carbon footprint obtained for a subsample of our respondents. With these indicators, using multiple regression analyses, we test several hypotheses derived from the literature on the relationship between resource use and life satisfaction in and around protected areas. Contrary to our expectations, we do not find differences in resource use or life satisfaction, or the relationship between resource use and life satisfaction, across park and non-park regions. We discuss potential explanations for our findings and their implications for nature park authorities and future study designs

Identifying individuals\u27 preferences using games: A field experiment in promoting sustainable energy consumption

We present a novel approach to identify individuals’ preferences in the context of sustainable energy consumption by letting them play a public good game (PGG). The study will be conducted using an energy-efficiency website developed by us and operated by an Austrian utility company that currently facilitates 9,929 users out of which 1,000 will be randomly selected as participants. Laboratory experiments on PGGs identified two types of cooperative behavior: free riders and conditional cooperators. While free riders tend to act unaffected by the behavior of others, conditional cooperators are stronger influenced by the perception of their peers. In our study, participants receive normative feedback on their consumption, and we investigate the moderating effects of the PGG’s results on changes in energy consumption. The findings will contribute to the design of information systems to promote environmental sustainability because their effectiveness is increased if the consumption feedback provided reflects the recipient’s preference

Sharing Compromising Information as a Cooperative Strategy

Well-enforced norms create an opportunity for norm breakers to cooperate in ventures requiring trust. This is realized when norm breakers, by sharing evidence of their breaches, make themselves vulnerable to denunciation and therefore trustworthy. The sharing of compromising information (SCI) is a strategy employed by criminals, politicians, and other actors wary of their partners’ trustworthiness in which the cost of ensuring compliance is offloaded on clueless norm enforcers. Here we introduce SCI as a sui generis cooperative strategy and test its functioning experimentally. In our experiment, subjects first acquire the label “dove” or “hawk” depending on how cooperative or uncooperative they are, respectively. Hawks acquire compromising information embodied in their label and can reveal it before an interaction with trust at stake. Unlike doves, hawks who reveal their label make themselves vulnerable to their partners, who can inflict a penalty on them after interaction. We find that even students in as artificial a setting as a computerized decision laboratory grasp the advantage of SCI and use it to cooperate. Our results corroborate the idea that compromising information can be conceived as a “hostage” that, when mutually exchanged, makes each party to the interaction vulnerable and therefore trustworthy in joint endeavours

Signals of belonging: emergence of signalling norms as facilitators of trust and parochial cooperation

Mechanisms of social control reinforce norms that appear harmful or wasteful, such as mutilation practices or extensive body tattoos. We suggest such norms arise to serve as signals that distinguish between ingroup “friends” and outgroup “foes”, facilitating parochial cooperation. Combining insights from research on signalling and parochial cooperation, we incorporate a trust game with signalling in an agent-based model to study the dynamics of signalling norm emergence in groups with conflicting interests. Our results show that costly signalling norms emerge from random acts of signalling in minority groups that benefit most from parochial cooperation. Majority groups are less likely to develop costly signalling norms. Yet, norms that prescribe sending costless group identity signals can easily emerge in groups of all sizes – albeit, at times, at the expense of minority group members. Further, the dynamics of signalling norm emergence differ across signal costs, relative group sizes, and levels of ingroup assortment. Our findings provide theoretical insights into norm evolution in contexts where groups develop identity markers in response to environmental challenges that put their interests at odds with the interests of other groups. Such contexts arise in zones of ethnic conflict or during contestations of existing power relations

Die Expansion digitaler Märkte und die dunklen Seiten von Reputationssystemen

Digitale Reputationssysteme Bewertungen tragen entscheidend dazu bei, dass Milliarden von Transaktionen relativ reibungslos auf digitalen Märkten abgewickelt werden; selbst auf illegalen Märkten im so genannten Darknet. Ohne Reputationssystem würden digitale Märkte, auf denen anonyme Akteure weltweit Handel treiben, am Vertrauensproblem scheitern. Entsprechend haben sich Reputationssysteme auf digitalen Märkten, aber ebenso bei der Bewertung von Dienstleistungen, Hotels, Mitfahrzentralen, usw. rasant verbreitet. Die Verbreitung digitaler Reputationssysteme Vielleicht ist der Begriff »Reputationsgesellschaft« eine Übertreibung, doch macht er zugleich deutlich, dass immer mehr Ecken und Winkel der Gesellschaft von Reputationssystemen erfasst werden. Im Wissenschaftsbereich berechnen Google Scholar, Repec, Research Gate, Academia u.a. Zitationswerte, h-Index und andere Kennziffern, die über Karrieren von Wissenschaftlern mit entscheiden. Private Firmen mit ihren digitalen Archiven und oftmals intransparent konstruierten Reputationsscores haben heute Einfluss auf die Karrierewege in den wissenschaftlichen Institutionen. Die dunkle Seite digitaler Reputationssysteme Reputation beruht immer auf Wahrnehmung und Wahrnehmung kann täuschen. Insbesondere aber kann Reputation inszeniert werden. Nicht nur erschwindelter Aufbau von Reputation ist ein Problem, sondern auch das Gegenteil: die Zerstörung von Reputation. Ein zentrales Problem von Reputationssystemen ist mithin die Zuverlässigkeit der Informationen. Auch im »Darknet« liefern Bewertungen von Transaktionen, wie bei eBay, Informationen über »ehrliche« Händler auf illegalen Märkten. (Das Darknet verhilft aber auch Bürgerrechtlern und Journalisten in diktatorischen Regimen zu freier Kommunikation.) Die Analyse von Daten illegaler Märkte ist für die Erklärung der dezentralen Entstehung sozialer Kooperation von großem Interesse. Denn es gibt kein Rechtssystem, kein Gericht, dass im Falle des Falles bei einem Betrug angerufen werden könnte. In dem Beitrag werden Forschungen über Reputationssysteme auf Basis großer Datenmengen vorgestellt und die Risiken thematisiert, aber auch die Chancen zur Mobilisierung von Gegenkräften. In einer »asymmetrischen Gesellschaft« (James Coleman) ist es allerdings keine einfache Aufgabe, die Herrschaft der digitalen Konzerne und staatlicher Behörden über die Daten zu begrenzen