A Computational Model of Trust and Reputation

Despite their many advantages, e-Businesses lag behind brick and mortar businesses in several fundamental respects. This paper concerns one of these: relationships based on trust and reputation. Recent studies on simple reputation systems for eBusinesses such as eBay have pointed to the importance of such rating systems for deterring moral hazard and encouraging trusting interactions. However, despite numerous studies on trust and reputation systems, few have taken studies across disciplines to provide an integrated account of these concepts and their relationships. This paper first surveys existing literatures on trust, reputation and a related concept: reciprocity. Based on sociological and biological understandings of these concepts, a computational model is proposed. This model can be implemented in a real system to consistently calculate agents’ trust and reputation scores.