Dynamics of trust reciprocation in multi-relational networks

Ayush Singhal, Karthik Subbian, Jaideep Srivastava, Tamara G. Kolda, Ali Pinar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Understanding the dynamics of reciprocation is of great interest in sociology and computational social science. The recent growth of Massively Multi-player Online Games (MMOGs) has provided unprecedented access to large-scale data which enables us to study such complex human behavior in a more systematic manner. In this paper, we consider three different networks in the EverQuest2 game: chat, trade, and trust. The chat network has the highest level of reciprocation (33%) because there are essentially no barriers to it. The trade network has a lower rate of reciprocation (27%) because it has the obvious barrier of requiring goods or money for exchange; morever, there is no clear benefit to returning a trade link except in terms of social connections. The trust network has the lowest reciprocation (14%) because this equates to sharing certain within-game assets such as weapons, and so there is a high barrier for such connections In general, we observe that reciprocation rate is inversely related to the barrier level in these networks. We also note that reciprocation has connections across the heterogeneous networks. Our experiments indicate that players make use of the medium-barrier reciprocations to strengthen a relationship. We hypothesize that lower-barrier interactions are an important component to predicting higher-barrier ones. We verify our hypothesis using predictive models for trust reciprocations with features from trade interactions. Incorporating the number of trades (both before and after the initial trust link) boosts our ability to predict if the trust will be reciprocated up to 11% with respect to the AUC. More generally, we see strong correlations across the different networks and emphasize that network dynamics, such as reciprocation, cannot be studied in isolation on just a single type of connection.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2013
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages661-665
Number of pages5
ISBN (Print)9781450322409
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Event2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2013 - Niagara Falls, ON, Canada
Duration: Aug 25 2013Aug 28 2013

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2013

Other

Other2013 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2013
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityNiagara Falls, ON
Period8/25/138/28/13

Keywords

  • MMOGs
  • Multi-relational network
  • Predictio
  • Reciprocation
  • Trust

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