The Collective Trust Game: An Online Group Adaptation of the Trust Game Based on the HoneyComb Paradigm

The need to understand trust in groups holistically has led to a surge in new approaches to measuring collective trust. However, this construct is often not fully captured in its emergent qualities by the available research methods. In this paper, the Collective Trust Game (CTG) is presented, a computer-based, multi-agent trust game based on the HoneyComb paradigm, which enables researchers to assess the emergence of collective trust. The CTG builds on previous research on interpersonal trust and adapts the widely known Trust Game to a group setting in the HoneyComb paradigm. Participants take on the role of either an investor or trustee; both roles can be played by groups. Initially, investors and trustees are endowed with a sum of money. Then, the investors need to decide how much, if any, of their endowment they want to send to the trustees. They communicate their tendencies as well as their final decision by moving back and forth on a playfield displaying possible investment amounts. At the end of their decision time, the amount the investors have agreed upon is multiplied and sent to the trustees. The trustees have to communicate how much of that investment, if any, they want to return to the investors. Again, they do so by moving on the playfield. This procedure is repeated for multiple rounds so that collective trust can emerge as a shared construct through repeated interactions. With this procedure, the CTG provides the opportunity to follow the emergence of collective trust in real time through the recording of movement data. The CTG is highly customizable to specific research questions and can be run as an online experiment with little, low cost equipment. This paper shows that the CTG combines the richness of group interaction data with the high internal validity and time-effectiveness of economic games.