Trust development in online competitive game environments

a network analysis approach

authored by: Anna Lena Fehlhaber, Usama EL-Awad
Abstract: Trust seems to become established even in scenarios where the prerequisites for trust are complicated by conditions that evoke scepticism. Nonetheless, trust emerges, a phenomenon that is to be comprehended and examined in the present experimental inquiry. In order to comprehensively capture the process, a competitive online game environment was used to document the development of trust networks, directionality, and strength using network analysis. Despite the conditions conducive to distrust in this game setting, acts of trust were exhibited.Robust trust bonds persisting over the course of gameplay appear to manifest mostly dyadic or triadic, with participant embeddedness within the network and homophily in terms of general trustfulness towards strangers being conducive factors for trust bonding and game survivability. This study hence contributes to the overall understanding of online trust development and offers several further research opportunities in a mostly unexplored field.
Organisation(s): Sociology Department
External Organisation(s): Bielefeld University
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Type: Article
Journal: Applied Network Science
Volume: 9
No. of pages: 50
Publication date: 18.03.2024
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: General, Computer Networks and Communications, Computational Mathematics
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1007/s41109-024-00614-6 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{ad247a91578a4d9fb92373b7356f538c,
title = "Trust development in online competitive game environments: a network analysis approach",
abstract = "Trust seems to become established even in scenarios where the prerequisites for trust are complicated by conditions that evoke scepticism. Nonetheless, trust emerges, a phenomenon that is to be comprehended and examined in the present experimental inquiry. In order to comprehensively capture the process, a competitive online game environment was used to document the development of trust networks, directionality, and strength using network analysis. Despite the conditions conducive to distrust in this game setting, acts of trust were exhibited.Robust trust bonds persisting over the course of gameplay appear to manifest mostly dyadic or triadic, with participant embeddedness within the network and homophily in terms of general trustfulness towards strangers being conducive factors for trust bonding and game survivability. This study hence contributes to the overall understanding of online trust development and offers several further research opportunities in a mostly unexplored field.",
keywords = "Behavioural experiment, MMSNA, Online environment, SNA, Trust, Trust measurement",
author = "Fehlhaber, {Anna Lena} and Usama EL-Awad",
note = "Funding Information: Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.",
year = "2024",
month = mar,
day = "18",
doi = "10.1007/s41109-024-00614-6",
language = "English",
volume = "9",
journal = "Applied Network Science",
issn = "2364-8228",
publisher = "Springer Open",
number = "1",
}