Trust without touch: jumpstarting long-distance trust with initial social activities

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is thought to be inadequate when one needs to establish trust. If, however, people meet before using CMC, they trust each other, trust being established through touch. Here we show that if participants do not meet beforehand but rather engage in various getting-acquainted activities over a network, trust is much higher than if they do nothing beforehand, nearly as good as a prior meeting. Using textchat to get acquainted is nearly as good as meeting, and even just seeing a picture is better than nothing. Keywords Trust, cooperation, text chat, communication media, CMC, CSCW

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Jun Zheng, Elizabeth S. Veinott, Nathan Bos, Judith S. Olson, Gary M. Olson
• Keywords: CHI 2002, Human Computer Interaction, Keywords Trust, Various Getting-acquainted Activities