Trust without touch: jump-start trust with social chat

ABSTRACT

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is thought to be inadequate when one needs to establish trust. Rocco [4] found, for example, that discussions about agreements conducted over email were far less successful in engendering trust than those conducted face-to-face. But, if the participants met and did a team building exercise before the real task, trust was shown in spite of only having email to talk during the task. Here we show that if participants do not meet beforehand but rather engage in a text chat where they are told to "get to know each other" for a brief period, they show the same kinds of trust that you find when they meet beforehand face-to-face.

REFERENCES

• 1: Kollock, P., Social dilemmas: The anatomy of cooperation, Annual review of sociology, 1998, 24, 183-214
• 2: Moore, D. A., Kurtzberg, T. R., Thompson, L. L. & Morris, M. W., Long and short routes to success in electronically mediated negotiations: Group affiliations and good vibrations, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 77, 1, 1999, pp. 22-43
• 3: 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]
• 4: Ostrom, E., Walker, J. and Gardner, R. Covenants with and without a sword: Self-governance is possible. American Political Science Review, 1992, 86, 404-417
• 5: 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]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Computer-supported cooperative work

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Human factors
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Synchronous interaction

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Human Factors

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