Trust without touch: jumpstarting long-distance trust with initial social activities

ABSTRACT

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is thought to be inadequate when one needs to establish trust. If, however, people meet before using CMC, they trust each other, trust being established through touch. Here we show that if participants do not meet beforehand but rather engage in various getting-acquainted activities over a network, trust is much higher than if they do nothing beforehand, nearly as good as a prior meeting. Using text-chat to get acquainted is nearly as good as meeting, and even just seeing a picture is better than nothing

REFERENCES

• 1: Nathan Bos , Judy Olson , Darren Gergle , Gary Olson , Zach Wright, Effects of four computer-mediated communications channels on trust development, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Changing our world, changing ourselves, April 20-25, 2002, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA [doi>10.1145/503376.503401]
• 2: Butler, J. K. (1991) Toward understanding and measuring conditions of trust: Evolution of conditions of trust inventory. Journal of Management, 17: 643--663.
• 3: Handy, C. (1995) Trust and the virtual organization. Harvard Business Review. 73(3), 40--50.
• 4: Komorita, S. S. (1994) Social Dilemmas. Madison, WI: Brown & Benchmark.
• 5: Moore, D. A., Kurtzberg, T. R., Thompson, L. L. & Morris, M. W. (1999) Long and short routes to success in electronically mediated negotiations: Group affiliations and good vibrations, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 77, 1, pp. 22--43.
• 6: Judith S. Olson , Gary M. Olson , David K. Meader, What mix of video and audio is useful for small groups doing remote real-time design work?, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.362-368, May 07-11, 1995, Denver, Colorado, United States [doi>10.1145/223904.223951]
• 7: Ostrom, E., Walker, J. and Gardner, R. (1992) Covenants with and without a sword: Self-governance is possible. American Political Science Review, 1992, 86, 404--417.
• 8: Elena Rocco, Trust breaks down in electronic contexts but can be repaired by some initial face-to-face contact, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.496-502, April 18-23, 1998, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/274644.274711]
• 9: Rocco, E., Finholt, T.A., Hofer, E.C., & Herbsleb, J.D. (2001). Out of sign, short of trust. Presentation at the Founding Conference of the European Academy of Management. Barcelona, Spain.
• 10: Rotter, J. B. (1967). A new scale for the measurement of interpersonal trust. Journal of Personality, 35 (4), 651--665.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Human factors

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Software psychology

  J. Computer Applications
  J.7 COMPUTERS IN OTHER SYSTEMS
      Subjects: Consumer products

General Terms:
Economics, Human Factors, Measurement, Theory

Keywords:
CMC, CSCW, communication media, cooperation, text chat, trust