A Networked-Player Trust Game and Its Evolutionary Dynamics

Abstract

Trust and trustworthiness are of great importance in social and human systems, especially when considering managerial and economic decision-making. In this paper, we investigate the emergent dynamics of an evolutionary game-theoretic model - the ${N}$ -player evolutionary trust game - consisting of three types of players: 1) an investor; 2) a trustee who is trustworthy; and 3) a trustee who is untrustworthy. Here, we limit the interactions between players to local neighborhoods defined by a specific spatial topology or social network. Players are able to adjust their game-playing strategies using an evolutionary update rule based on the payoffs obtained by their neighbors. Through co..